Skepticism

EVENTS

It’s not just creationists who mangle science, some atheists do, too

I was sent this terrible statement reputed to be from the guy who calls himself “The Amazing Atheist”. There is, however, no evidence that he actually said these specific words, so the attribution was inappropriate. However, somebody still wrote this idiotic statement:

Nature already has an age of consent. That age is approximately 12-13, otherwise known as the onset of puberty. We don’t need Christian morals to set an arbitrary age on when a sexually mature human female can mate legally. We already have clear parameters on sexually maturity as established by the law of evolution, and acting within those parameters does not under any reasonable definition constitute “rape”. Moreover, because this irrational moral imperialism is almostly solely applied against males who pursue relationships with younger females, I do believe the change of age-of-consent laws should be a critical area of focus for Men’s Rights Activists.

So much wrong.

Nature does not set an age of consent. Nature doesn’t care. Nature doesn’t stop you from raping babies, and it doesn’t tell you it’s OK to rape 21 year olds, either. The age of consent is a social construct, made by people, intended to protect our children from exploitation during those difficult years when they are transitioning from childhood to adulthood.

The law of evolution (tell me, which one?) does not set clear parameters for sexual maturity. Humans have complex, prolonged development — we’re an altricial species, helpless at birth and requiring a long period of nurturing before fully independent. Ovulation is not a magic signpost that says you’re ready to be impregnated. It says your ovaries have developed, but humans live by complex social interactions and sex can be a difficult phenomenon, with obligations and responsibilities and privileges. We expect people to be able to be able to interact with each other in non-damaging social ways before they leap to bumping genitals.

The only way evolution comes into play here is in a pragmatic, rather than a moral sense. For instance, if the author were to promote the idea that since babies are plump, tender, and helpless, Nature’s Law says that we’re free, even encouraged, to eat them, it would be easy to see that any population that thought that would be quickly on their way to self-enabled extinction. Similarly, evolution doesn’t say that you can’t rape young children…it will simply and objectively pass a kind of operational judgment on your population, as the next generation grows up with fucked up, likely unstable and untenable, social structures.

The legal age of consent is arbitrary. Some people might be able to enjoy sex in a mature fashion at an earlier age, others might be best off avoiding it for a few extra years. But we don’t have a way to measure sexual maturity, so as social and legal animals, we abide by one arbitrary dividing line. But picking the moment of first menstruation is also arbitrary — it says nothing about human behavior, or the ability to be responsible for one’s actions, or readiness to cope with the burdens of a possible pregnancy.

Somehow, even worse, the author seems to think that the ability to get pregnant nullifies the concept of rape. That doesn’t follow. If a person has poor judgment because they are too immature to consider all of the consequences, that does not mean you’re allowed to freely have sex with them, as long as they say “yes” to a bowl of candy. We do not use the legal age of consent to dismiss the idea of rape — we don’t say, “she’s over 21, we can rape her now” (well, some people do, but they’re wrong.)

I’ll also condemn with equal severity older women who take advantage of boys. I know, the attitudes in our culture do trivialize sexual assault on boys and men, but that doesn’t mean we should dismiss them. Maybe that would be a good goal for MRAs, to work to defend the sexual autonomy of young men and boys.

But that would be a rational and responsible approach. That last line is revealing: rather than a responsible goal, go for personal sexual gratification. Yeah, sure, encourage MRAs to embrace pedophilia. We’ll see how effectively cultural evolution can work.

Jeebus! I hope he realizes there are Fundamentalist Mormons who hold the same views about girls approximately 12-13.Warren Jeffs got life in prison for acting against this irrational moral imperialism–because he was raping teenage girls.

This is actually an interesting question in cultural anthropology. It is of course true that in simple human societies — small groups of hunter gatherers and small scale agricultural societies — adulthood essentially coincides with puberty. That’s why Jewish boys say “Today I am a man” at the age of 13, because back when the Hebrews were goatherders that’s how it was. And it was also pretty much that way for European peasants in the Middle Ages. And people would marry shortly after puberty.

Arranged marriages of even younger girls are another matter, and of course given the profound gender inequalities in most ancient societies, girls could be forced to marry much older men. That offends our morals, and some people were capable of seeing it as tragic even back in the day. It still goes on in some societies today.

Adolescence is in fact a fairly modern invention. In complex societies, adulthood is a more difficult accomplishment, having babies at age 13 is a bad idea and setting up a household at that age is impossible. However, as we know well, that doesn’t stop teens from having sex with each other. People differ in how they view that, but it is obviously what comes naturally.

But, much older people exploiting such young people is another matter. It’s one thing to say that evolution has resulted in people wanting to be sexually active at around age 13 (or younger); it’s another to say that a person that age can meaningfully consent to a sexual relationship with someone the age of the Amazing Atheist. Clearly, the guy is a creep.

YES. SO. MUCH. WRONG.
He conflates “able to become pregnant” with “consent to have sex”. And completely misses the definition of “Rape”. He raises some valid QUESTIONS, but is Awful at his proposed ANSWERS.
“Rape” is NOT just what the law says it is. All the laws about it that include ages in the definition are simple sub-categories. “Rape” is not just ‘lack of consent’ but ‘dominance’ of one over another with sex as an instrument of that dominance. I agree that if the current legal definition of “rape” is based solely on the age of consent, or the ages of the two involved, that is not the best way to define the crime, and needs to be changed. But that is NOT to be interpreted as changing age of consent. Rape is not simply disobeying the age of consent rule. Do Not conflate the two. BUT age of consent must not be used as a rape pass: “it’s only rape if under age of consent, otherwise, it not a rape”. If two teenagers get romantic (consensually) and a little “too far”, it is extreme to then charge him with rape, just cuz she is under age of consent.
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aarrgghh, maybe it’s not but I keep thinking this “Amazing Atheist” is doing a Gish Gallop; by throwing out one piece that is reasonable, leading to another piece very UNreasonable. To disagree/agree with each piece, just makes the disagreer sound muddled and craz… incoherent. I’ll just say, this guy is totally lacking empathy for the wrong side of the “rapist/rapee” fence. It’s “nice” to feel for those people accused of rape, but nicer to feel for those who were raped. Try a little more of the latter.
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aargh, gotta go for a cuppa.

I’m almost hoping the MRA groups are stupid enough to push this line publicly. Adding “creepy pedophiles and enablers of pedophiles” to their already well-known misogyny and apologism with regards to sexual and domestic violence will help to make them even more irrelevant and despised.

. . . Seriously, this just makes me shudder. Anyone want to bet this started out on a hardcore MRA forum where some guy was trying to rationalize the molestation of step-children?

Please, for the love of history and the age of consent, don’t repeat this bullshit lie. Peasants married later than nobility and even the nobility weren’t marrying that young.

“The so-called northwestern European marriage pattern included first marriages in the mid-twenties for women, and mid-to-late twenties for men. Nobility and gentry tended to marry a little younger: women in their late teens to early twenties while their grooms were often in their early twenties. During the later Middle Ages, reliable records for demographic studies are not as plentiful, but P. J. P. Goldberg has collated results from a variety of sources and studies and concluded that the pattern of late age at first marriage largely had been established by the later Middle Ages, but with averages a bit lower (late teens to early twenties) in rural areas, especially among the more well-to-do.” Source: He Would Never Consent in His Heart”: Child Marriages in Early Modern England, Johanna Rickman.

On top of all the other fail, he is implying that he is just being some iconoclastic logical atheist revolutionary opposing “Christian morals”. Except…age of consent is not Christian morality by any stretch of the imagination. He bought the PR, just like the Christians do. He is lending credibility to the Christians who pretend that the Bible is against having sex with children. It isn’t. It doesn’t say anything for that effect. Christians who believe it does are taking secular morals and simply assuming that it came somewhere from the Bible and they are all sure they could find it if they bothered.

The Amazing Asshole has always been idiotic. Always been odious. I would not have guessed that he was going to be a child rape apologist on top of that though.

There’s nothing really arbitrary about age of consent. Well, there is, but we’re gradually approaching it from a more principled stance (i.e. being able to give informed consent without impaired judgement). Age is just our best measure of that, since we can’t effectively test people and certify them as “consent ready.” We also recognize some people simply can’t consent: people impaired by drugs, certain forms of mental disabilities (there was a local case some years back about 3 men manipulating an autistic woman into having sex with them), etc.

(Incidentally, some paedophile/ephebophile advocates to argue for the implementation of such a test.)

I would add that even in cultures that allow/allowed child marriages, consent is/was still of central importance. It’s just that it was the parent who had the responsibility of providing consent.

As we’ve become more conscious of the autonomy of children, and allow them increasing responsibility for their own love lives, the age of consent has been pushed later. Why? Because if I’m not the responsible adult who decides what’s best for them, and if they’re not yet emotionally (not physiologically) ready to make such commitments, then we have to give them room to mature.

Mellow Monkey @13: This is referring to a specific area of Europe in the late Middle Ages. As your reference notes, “John Hajnal, in his famous study “European Marriage Patterns in Perspective” identifies a high marriage age for Europeans since the 18th century, but even in the Middle Ages he comes up with the number 17 as the mean age for women getting married around the 14th century.” A mean age of 17 of course means that many girls are marrying younger. So this is one person’s take on it but what I said is not a bullshit lie — it doesn’t pertain to everywhere in Europe during all of what we call the Middle Ages, but that’s beside the point I’m making.

Has anybody got the source for this quote? It seems odd that TAA, who doesn’t like MRAs himself would go around advising MRAs on paedophilia. Seems a wee bit fishy to me. It’s very easy to write something horrendous and then just plaster it over some guy’s face.

As much as part of me hopes that the MRM say “yeah, let’s support the Man Right to have sex with 12 year olds” and then go up in flames, I also fear that it is…well, playing with fire. If this becomes a significant meme in the MRM, I fear what the Men’s Righters might do. All they need to do is find the echo chamber where they think it is acceptable to prove their Alpha status by preying on the incredibly young and then who knows the severity of what could happen.

The MRM might be able to discredit itself to the public at large, but the devout followers will probably never jump ship, no matter how deplorable their ship is proven to be. They are in it for the long haul, and I fear what will happen if they are seen as monsters. Contrarians that they are, they would embrace that and be more than willing to behave monstrously…

Follow my link in my original comment. That quote is an example from the link, but the documentation of average marriage ages spreads far beyond one quote.

Aristocratic women in the Sung Period in China (from The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period) were often married young, when they were between 17 and 22. 90% of women had been married at 22, generally to men of a similar age. Almost no women were married at 15 or younger.

…

The mean age at first marriage for women in Mexico City in 1811 was 22.7. The Women of Mexico City, 1790-1857 states that 22 was younger than the average European range at the time.

To further go into why extremely young marriage has not been a common practice, consider how dangerous pregnancy and childbirth were before modern medicine and adequate nutrition. Pregnancy for extremely young mothers is more dangerous in general, which would be a huge risk to take without modern medicine:

Pregnant teens are at much higher risk of having serious medical complications such as:

Placenta previa
Pregnancy-induced hypertension
Premature delivery
Significant anemia
Toxemia
Infants born to teens are 2 – 6 times more likely to have low birth weight than those born to mothers age 20 or older. Prematurity plays the greatest role in low birth weight, but intrauterine growth retardation (inadequate growth of the fetus during pregnancy) is also a factor.

Teen mothers are more likely to have unhealthy habits that place the infant at greater risk for inadequate growth, infection, or chemical dependence. The younger a mother is below age 20, the greater the risk of her infant dying during the first year of life.

A lot of this today is socioeconomic in nature, but by looking at the concerns expressed over early marriage for noblewomen in historical documents we can see many of these risks were still felt by them. A good chunk of your population dying in childbirth at fifteen, likely without any surviving issue, would be a fantastic way to have a population crash.

All concerns of cultural impact and psychological well-being aside, it doesn’t make medical sense to declare a menstruating 12-year-old mature enough for sex.

A noted Internet creep and anti-feminist stating that ephebophilia is a perfectly natural sexual inclination… Not exactly surprising. What about arguments from other disciplines of study that show that sexual contact between adults and children (yes, T.J. Kincaid, children) has a significant capacity for harm?

Babies are able to drink as soon as they are born – it follows naturally, that the legal age for alcohol should be lowered. Kindergartners are able to write – it follows naturally that the legal age for voting should be lowered

I’ve longed thought that perhaps one of the most critical diferences between how things used to be and how things currently are in the developed world is that as well as having achieved a much longer life span, we have also managed to provide the means for a much longer childhood. We have the privilege of being able to afford VERY long childhoods for our children and i think this is hugely beneficial as it translates into a longer educational period where the main or even only concern of the individual is to develop intellectually. I suspect that this, coupled with stronger and more complex stimuli, are the fuel behind the consistent increase in academic performance and QI scores.
Of course there is such a thing as “nursing” your children for too long, but i think our hability as a society to provide very long childhoods is one of our greatest strengths and a sign of societal and cultural development. Wether those very long childhoods involve any kind of sexual activity between equals is of course something that varies greatly between individuals and may or may not be a reason for concern, but at least we have a society that for the most part allows that diversity to flourish without imposing maturity onto barely pubescent children….and that’s a fucking excellent thing.

Oh, i forgot to address TAA’s quote: FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING RAPIST PIECE OF SHIT. That first sentence alone is disgusting as well as absolutely fucking wrong in every possible way. Like others have said, i want nothing to do with scum like this…the rifts are nowhere near deep enough. I need to take a shower now…even my brain feels dirty after reading that, i wish i could rinse it.

@Cervantes
The idea that people in Middle Ages married shortly after puberty is actually more of a myth than real history. While nobles often arranged marriages for their sons and daughters from the moment of their birth, those relationships often weren’t consummated for years after the ceremony itself, which was held during their early puberty. They were well-aware that a 12-14 year old girl had even less chance to survive childbirth – and produce a healthy offspring – than a grown woman.

Ordinary people married – and consummated the marriage – even later. It was not unusual for a young man to actually marry in his very late teens and early twenties, because that was the age when his professional training was wrapping up enough for him to be able to support a family. The same went for young women of non-noble birth.Admittedly, during the late Middle Ages the age at which women – girls, really – were married off got lower and lower, but we’re still definitely NOT talking about child marriages.

Does this not worry anyone? A game of telephone that goes from “this is a quote from his book, believe it or not,” to this blog without anybody checking that he said it. And then within an hour there are comments like “FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING RAPIST PIECE OF SHIT.”

To all those whiny atheists complaining about divisiveness in the community–The Amazing Atheist is not someone I want to share a tent with. I want him gone. I want him to be so ostracized that he becomes The Atheist Pariah. This is a guy with harmful views and I want nothing to do with him, yet he’s one of those people you hold up and say “put aside your differences and work with him”. Fuck that noise.

“OH MY GOSH someone commented this (minus the “this should be what MRAs work towards” bit) on one of my videos about rape. Ffs. I didn’t even know it was a quote, I just saw it as dumb MRA shit and deleted it.”

42 – Quite right, we all know what they’re like, so no harm in fabricating evidence.

Amazing Atheist is one of the most hateful guys I’ve seen on the internet as an atheist. Not just bigotry style of hate, but personally hateful and petty. He was also known as The Distressed Watcher on That Guy With The Glasses, but was dropped when it became clear he really did hate everyone else on the site. Far worse than thunderf00t, imo.

Ok, I don’t like this guy he is absolutely disgusting. But I tried to track this quote back. I couldn’t find it in the book either. The source is apparently a tumblr with this image which doesn’t give a link to the book, or any other reference.

There are, however, a couple of references to something close on the rationalwiki page about him regarding posts on an old forum where he advocated changing the age of consent to 12-13.

I can’t find the direct quote either, but RationalWiki’s page on TAA points to a Web Archive post from a Marilyn Manson fan forum where a user named Terroja (supposedly TAA’s actual first name) advocates lowering the age of consent to 12 or 13 There’s also a post on TAA’s Tumblr page where he addresses these “rumors” that he advocated lowering the age of consent where he seems to walk back the sentiment.

However, I did find his ebook on scribd and could not find the quoted passage. Also however: http://youtu.be/F2PQ4CfE_5I?t=34m26s. Just read the conversation on the screen at that point that I linked to.

This is unbelievable. I’m off, sort this out among yourselves. You really can’t just post things about because it “sounds like the sort of thing he’d say” or is “similar to stuff he’s said before.” Be accurate ffs. He says so much stupid shit it’s not particularly hard to make him look stupid.

Yes, basically the only sources saying this exact quote are secondary sources commenting on it. I cannot find any written documentation of TAA saying this. It may have been transcribed from a video but if so I do not know which one and the people who keep bringing this quote up should have mentioned it, but didn’t.

TAA is an odious fuck. And probably would say something similar to the quote. But there is no evidence that he did actually say it.

Somebody said that you think that age of consent should be 13 and tau you were in a intimate relationship with a 14 year old when you were 23

Asked by Anonymous

Wow. The rumor mill just keeps on churning.

The age of consent thing is based on a post I made on an internet forum when I was like 20. And it was actually a pretty popular sentiment on the boards at that time. Hell, it was a popular sentiment on the internet in general at that time. It was also, I’m sad to say, an opinion that my father held.

After experiencing another decade on planet earth, I realize how horribly misguided that opinion was and is. I think that maybe it’s not so horrible for kids that age to begin sexual exploration with one another, but it’s definitely wrong for an adult to engage is sex with someone that young and inexperienced.

As for this nonsense about me dating a 14-year-old when I was 23, I was actually mocking a friend of mine who was over 30 and was macking on some 16-year-old girl. The sad fact is that when I was 23, I was single and pussyless. And I was too timid and frightened to even approach a girl sexually, let alone one who could wind me up in prison.

And there we go. I’m not sure if I believe that excuse, Anthony K, but I also have no reason NOT to believe it. So, the whole pedophilia angle is probably a non-issue. The real issue is his rape “jokes” and apologia.

If I you are just flat out assuming that I am one of the people who thinks that it is okay to misattribute words to him, then congratulations on putting words in my mouth and being a hypocrite!

@59, c’mon anteprepro, it’s not unreasonable for Dani to read “But I can confirm that it is very similar to things he has said” (#53) and “And probably would say something similar to the quote.” (#57) as some sort of justification.

Dani pointed out this quote isn’t legit, and has received little in the way of the mea culpas that should have been forthcoming. Attacking them for some strained reading of hypocrisy isn’t the path to take here.

Also, TAA’s admission (or joke) about dating a 14-year-old comes from a video from 2011 where he participates in a recorded chat room session. Encyclopedia Dramatica has a section on it including a link to the video (see the section “Proof that TJ is a pedophile” at this link, and BTW if you’re unfamiliar with Encyclopedia Dramatica consider this a BIG OLE’ CONTENT NOTE.) From my admittedly brief perusal of the video it doesn’t seem to be a joke, but I could definitely be missing some context.

Walked it back, and that comment was 12 years ago. As terrible as he is, that’s not his current opinion according to himself.

This text may have been written or stated by him a long time ago, but if this was (most likely) purposefully spread by a third person, it still counts as a smear campaign today.

Exactly. I’d really rather PZ not be a part of that campaign.

(ironically, the age of consent thing is also an opinion held by my father, ugh)

It’s not a terribly uncommon opinion, sadly. I can’t say for certain that I’ve never held a variant of that opinion myself, though if I ever did I wasn’t quite out of puberty. I know by my early 20s I was against relationships with significant age-power disparities.

Anthony, my comment where I said “But I can confirm that it is very similar to things he has said” was researched and posted over the course of two hours. The last comment I saw before that was number 27 or so. I’m sure it looked like I was piling on at that point, since other people got to similar information quicker. But I also don’t like people assuming things I haven’t had. It is not something I appreciate. I understand that it is an easy mistake to make, so I will not be overly harsh in criticizing dani for it. Especially since you are right, dani has a good point and has received unnecessary push-back. But just like dani doesn’t like others leaping to conclusions, I am not exactly fan either.

Sloppy and kind of outrageously so, PZ. And “my point still stands” is disingenuous and irrelevant.

There’s enough hideousness from TAA and the rest of the misogynist brigade. We already know all about it. You just handed them a platform to claim you’ll pass along anything that confirms your views, damn the consequences to the person. Why?

@71: fair enough anteprepro, and I hope my comment #62 didn’t read like I thought you were justifying the misattribution. I knew where you were coming from, but it was clear Dani didn’t. In fairness, I’m familiar with you as a commenter, and I think I’m less likely to misread you than someone who reads and/or comments less frequently.

Also, in fairness, Anthony K, I am a very poor communicator in real life, so it is possible that I fucked something up. But that is also why I get even more testy when someone misinterprets me when I am fairly sure that I didn’t fuck up. Because my non-fuck ups are so rare! Treasure them!

And rereading the disclaimer a couple of times, I gotta agree with Josh. I don’t think the burden of proof here is on people to prove the comment was attributed falsely. If you cannot find an actual source for the quote, the picture and references to TAA (other than to note the comment has been attributed to him without citing a source) should be pulled.

Yeah, I agree with Josh as well. I like PZ’s takedown of the quote and I think that’s important because, unfortunately, it isn’t that uncommon of a thought process. But having TAA’s face and name associated with it when it cannot actually be attributed to him is bad.

This is actually an interesting question in cultural anthropology. It is of course true that in simple human societies — small groups of hunter gatherers and small scale agricultural societies — adulthood essentially coincides with puberty. That’s why Jewish boys say “Today I am a man” at the age of 13, because back when the Hebrews were goatherders that’s how it was. And it was also pretty much that way for European peasants in the Middle Ages. And people would marry shortly after puberty

I seem to recall reading that puberty started a lot later prior to the advent of the modern food supply, too. Anyone have more information?

I have to confess to being uncomfortable with this attribution (and I’ve only just seen it, post disclaimer/caveat/promise of modification).

I’ve not really watched a lot of TAA’s stuff, the little I watched was sufficiently late in his career that I knew it wasn’t for me (understatement of the year) due to, well, all the standard stuff that people mention above. Unlike Thunderf00t, who, prior to Frozen Peaches and cavernously Deeeeep Riftseses, made the odd video I enjoyed quite a lot.

Regardless of whether or not I think someone I only know via seconds of internet video is a total shitebiscuit (TAA), and I do, this is a level of “referencing” that I’d expect an undergrad to do. I think that PZ is one of the “good guys”, as far as the world has such things, see: feet of clay. More than that, I think PZ tries to be a “good guy”, which is, in the end, almost all that can be asked of anyone. The effort and obvious decent intent are there. This post is premature in my opinion, the discovery published before proper scrutiny, as it were. The continued use of the photo makes the association regardless of the disclaimer. Rewrite rather than disclaimer would be my vote. Not that I have one, but there you go.

dani:
I searched the net for segments of the quote, as well as the whole quote. The most I could turn up is this blog post:

Count yourself lucky if you’ve never heard of somewhat popular video-blogger TheAmazingAtheist aka TJ Kincaid. He’s one of the subset of atheists who want certain other atheists to “stop being divisive” via pointing out the injustices of the kyriarchal status quo ongoing within the atheist “movement”. He has ever so many rational and deeply intellectual opinions about life, the universe and everything. I just saw a link on Manboobz to a tumblr quoting directly from Amazeman’s (self-published) e-book Scumbag: Musings of a Subhuman (2007);

Wow… I have been watching TAAs videos for a while and he can be pretty rude sometimes, but I was surprised by this alleged quote, and was correct in being surprised since now it seems there is no way to attribute it to him. Talk about responsible atheism, PZ…

dani:
1. No problem.
2. Let me acknowledge and give you credit for the fact that you gently held our feet to the fire. Your bringing up the question and being persistent about it led us into doing the research and fact-checking. You kept us honor and you deserve a thank you for that.

2. Let me acknowledge and give you credit for the fact that you gently held our feet to the fire. Your bringing up the question and being persistent about it led us into doing the research and fact-checking.

Azkyroth @ 80, data has been kept since the early 19th century and it has dropped quite a bit since then. There’s a lot of research on why that is and it makes for some interesting reading. The higher age at the start of the 19th century doesn’t appear to have been constant throughout history, either. We know that in Medieval England puberty was expected to start in children between the ages of 12 and 14.

And, once again, they did not generally marry until their late teens to mid-twenties.

I’d say: take this post down. Since the quote hasn’t been sourced, we can’t know whether it comes from someone who actually believes it, or from an atheist. So the point that “some atheists mangle science” wouldn’t stand, if this is what it rests on (of course there’s plenty of other evidence for that point).

Taking it down and apologizing would be the best course of action, I think.

I shouldn’t *need* to say this, but apparently one does: TAA is a disgusting, abusive cretin. Objecting to someone falsely, though inadvertently, misattributing a quote to him does mean I think he’s OK, moral, or not deserving of a good old-fashioned shunning.

I shouldn’t need to say that because we’re all supposed to be aware that ethical obligations are messy, and that tribalism is not a per se good that can override those obligations.

Since the quote hasn’t been sourced, we can’t know whether it comes from someone who actually believes it, or from an atheist. So the point that “some atheists mangle science” wouldn’t stand, if this is what it rests on (of course there’s plenty of other evidence for that point).

You’re right. Without a source, it could be a strawman for all we know.

You can’t source him saying it – so the quote is in itself suspect, and while he may have said something similar he has since publicly admitted to being wrong.

It isn’t really a true reflection of his views, as generally repugnant as those views are.

That said – I think it is a pity in a way, while I am mildly embarrassed by my first response here I think the responses from the people who checked the sourcing and have taken you to task on it show some of the best in the community’s standards.

As much as we might disagree with TAA there is a basic level of standards and decency on display here.

I see this argument made on a regular basis, so I think it is fine to address it, but I think the new note at the top to be lacking. It is not enough to simply say it may have been falsely attributed to him, at this point in time there is no real evidence he said it at all. I think any reference to him having said it, other than an apology for the previously mistaken attribution should be removed, and it should be very clear there is no evidence he actually made the statement until it is actually found. If someone can find a reliable source for the quote, then by all means rip into him for it, but as it stands now the note is pretty weak.

Come on, we should be better than this. Trusting a quote pasted onto an image? This is the kind of thing we have likely seen creationist do for years, when they quote mine Darwin and spread it around without checking. People like David Barton and his followers make up quotes from the founders of the US and spread them around and their followers eat it up. We criticism them for this behaviour, and it is sad when we fall for it ourselves. We are all on the internet, if we see a quote attributed to someone, we can search for it and see if it is real rather than just believing it. A tiny bit of due diligence would be nice, there is little excuse for not doing that with the tools we have at hand.

“I think the difference in punishment between child rapists and child molestors should be more significant, with molestors perhaps simply attending mandatory therapy for their first offense. I also think that the age of sexual consent should be lowered to 12 or 13. ”

TJ is well known for throwing some of his dumber things down the memory hole, like the time he solicited for donations to take a roadtrip and interview famous atheists. After he raised thousands, he deleted all the videos and got amnesia about the whole thing.

“I think it is a pity in a way, while I am mildly embarrassed by my first response here I think the responses from the people who checked the sourcing and have taken you to task on it show some of the best in the community’s standards.”

(One person called it up, and did all the checks; that would be me)

I probably should point out that I’m an MRA who just so happened to be passing by. Lucky I did because at the rate you guys were going, I guess you’d have had a lynch-mob going by now!

But yeah, I really have nothing to do with this community. I think its embarrassing that one of your leading ‘skeptics’ would post such a clearly shit-stirring, made-up tattle-tale and then be all like “it does sound like the kind of thing he would say.” This place has no credibility and is a divisive laughing stock.

I mean is that how skepticism works? ‘Sounds about right, bloody pedo MRAs. After our kids they are. Going to post this up right away.’

I’ve been a part of the MRM for a while. There are some horrible mad misogynists who I do my best to call out when I can. But I’ve never heard anyone support pedophilia. And we do “work to defend the sexual autonomy of young men and boys.” Kinda one of the main deals, supporting male victims of rape and domestic abuse. Look up Michelle Elliott of kidscape. Perhaps concentrate on the work of the good MRAs instead of searching through 1000s of pages of Warren Farrell to find something a bit rapey. And then using this to justify pulling the fire alarm on a conference tackling male suicide. Just embarrassing.

I mean this echo chamber was accusing The Amazing Atheist of rape 19 comments in. On the basis of a clearly made up quote that took me one google search and 3 clicks to get to the bottom of.

Sorry, was just going to leave it be at saving you from yourselves, but I can’t have you associating my sense of fairness with this embarrassment of a blog.

Yeah, this should be taken down or at least amended. I made my commentary on the assumption that the source had already been established (a stupid, unskeptical assumption that I shouldn’t be making) and an awareness that TAA is a shitbag.

I retract my statements about TAA condoning ephebophila due to the lack of evidence to suggest that he does. He’s still a shitbag.

Accepting his ‘argument’ we are still left with the basic idea that bodies have sex. Which is an idea which leads to rape mentality. People, not bodies, have sex. Our long gestation period is an advantage and a disadvantage. But one of the advantages is that our minds (personalities or intellectual capacity) grow. Simply because my body is ready to do something does not mean that I, as a complete person, am ready.

It certainly does not mean that an immature mind is on equal ground to a fully mature one. It creates an unequal relationship with the more mature person dominating the less. Dominating. That is not RAPE, per se, which is why we created the idea of statutory rape. The idea that even if you could freely give consent, you are not in an intellectual and emotional place to understand what that is. That is why statutory rape is rape. This is not that hard to understand.

Does this not worry anyone? A game of telephone that goes from “this is a quote from his book, believe it or not,” to this blog without anybody checking that he said it. And then within an hour there are comments like “FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING RAPIST PIECE OF SHIT.”

Which i think is an apropriate reaction to that absolutely disgusting quote. If the quote is fabricated then it obviously doesn’t apply. From what i read about other comments he has made, i maintain the statement, i definitely think it applies to anyone who is defending lowering the age of consent to 12-13.

The alleged source of the quote was supposedly a Tmblr account page that now can’t be found. The reference was a e book by the amazing atheist published in 2007 called Scumbag. I did a word search of my electronic copy and was unable to find the alleged quote. I have no idea where it came from.

The Naturalistic Fallacy and the Appeal to Nature are two of the most overused fallacies that untenable premises are based on. It’s pretty much the basis for Social Darwinism, and is brought up all the time to support a whole plethora of awful ideas. Just because something can be observed in nature, it speaks nothing about the ethics and morals of the natural world.

Multiple people went looking for a source before you started screaming so feel free to flounce with your feelings of superiority intact, however I have never ever seen any MRA call out one of their own the way people have done to PZ here.

Lucky I did because at the rate you guys were going, I guess you’d have had a lynch-mob going by now!

Is fucked up. People died from being lynched. The worst ideas expressed in this thread have been “I want nothing to do with TAA”. Yeah, this post is wrong. PZ should pull it down, but no one has advocated for bringing any harm to The Amazing Atheist. There was never any danger of a lynch mob and your hyperbolic rantings are ridiculous. You’ve done your “good deed”, now begone.

chigau has a point.
Perhaps there’s merit in being transparent. Instead of this though:

[NOTE: The source for this quote has proven difficult to track down, and it may have been attributed to “The Amazing Atheist” falsely. If so, I’ll modify the post appropriately…but my point still stands, that the statement is very, very bad science.]

Include a disclaimer that says something like “I fucked up and didn’t source this properly. I have no evidence that The Amazing Atheist said this stuff and I’m sorry”. That could work. Leaving it up as it currently is is wrong bc it still insinuates-without evidence-that the quote comes from TAA. Deleting it could come across as trying to hide a mistake. Either way, the mistake should be owned.

I probably should point out that I’m an MRA who just so happened to be passing by. Lucky I did because at the rate you guys were going, I guess you’d have had a lynch-mob going by now!

Good to see that you know your dismissive tropes. Next time, please work in something about witch hunts and witch burnings.

Also, please do not put too much effort in patting your own back, other people would have been checking to see if TAA actually said that and would have pointed out the mistake. This is not the first time this has happened at this blog. And PZ is does admit his mistakes and tries to correct them.

But this kind of misinformation is hardly needed to know that TAA is someone who should be ignored by all ethical people. And the next time I see a good MRA will be the first time.

But, Dani, thank you for thinking that you were such a calming influence that you stopped a bunch of impressible people from gather together and leaving a dead body hanging from a tree bunch. I, for one, would if it were not for your random decentness.

Now, begone and commit your random acts of kindness elsewhere. it is more then I deserve.

Wow, give dani a compliment and then they just go into full on smug self-righteousness. I guess their motive was exactly what I feared the whole time and was exactly the reason why I bristled at the passive aggressive barbs.

You were right dani. This time. Enjoy it. I doubt you are right about much else regarding the MRAs.

I think 14-year-old girls are hot. (Yeah, so does everyone else, but I actually admit it)

So this would not appear to be the kind of thing he would say sarcastically or as parody. As to whether he said it and meant it, well, the evidence seem to be light that he did.

As for the comments by dani, it just goes to show, even when stopped clock syndrome strikes, and an MRA is actually right, they can’t resist then talking a load of crap that makes them wrong again – or even, given that it apparently took this particular MRA ‘one google search and 3 clicks’ to get evidence that this was a ‘a clearly made up quote’, actually being honest and up-front about what they know – especially as what dani’s posted only actually shows that somebody gave the wrong source for this quote, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that TAA said it somewhere else, nor does it rule out the possibility that somebody, somewhere did say this, but it’s been misattributed to TAA, not simply invented, as dani claims.

I’ve been a part of the MRM for a while. There are some horrible mad misogynists who I do my best to call out when I can. But I’ve never heard anyone support pedophilia

That’s great. Your personal ignorance proves what exactly?

Kinda one of the main deals, supporting male victims of rape and domestic abuse.

Kinda one of the main deals is doing so in order to dismiss the significance of the rape and abuse of women. They see how feminists focus on the issue, and they whine “what about teh menz” and the invent their male-specific version of feminist concerns, not caring about female victims all while also implying that feminists DON’T worry about male victims. I mean, fucking seriously.

I mean this echo chamber was accusing The Amazing Atheist of rape 19 comments in.

Citation needed.

On the basis of a clearly made up quote that took me one google search and 3 clicks to get to the bottom of.

The only time you actually started doing your own research was after we started providing more information for you to use and search for.

Clueless, sanctimonious fuckwad.

I gave dani far too much credit. And that credit clearly went straight to their already unnecessarily inflated ego.

As for the comments by dani, it just goes to show, even when stopped clock syndrome strikes, and an MRA is actually right, they can’t resist then talking a load of crap that makes them wrong again – or even, given that it apparently took this particular MRA ‘one google search and 3 clicks’ to get evidence that this was a ‘a clearly made up quote’, actually being honest and up-front about what they know – especially as what dani’s posted only actually shows that somebody gave the wrong source for this quote, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that TAA said it somewhere else, nor does it rule out the possibility that somebody, somewhere did say this, but it’s been misattributed to TAA, not simply invented, as dani claims.

#134
Frankly, that sounds a bit like a Maoist complaining that he doesn’t agree with the Stalinists. It’s a distinction that makes no difference. For all practical purposes, TAA is of one mind with the MRAs, whether he accepts the label or not.

I mean, this is the guy who penned such immortal words as “I think we should give the guy who raped you a medal.” He’s a vicious, despicable boil on the ass of humanity. I don’t really care if he thinks of himself as distinct from that other group of despicable boils on the as of humanity. For my purposes, he fits the bill. I don’t really care what he has to say about it.

Another thing:
With what we know, the OP should certainly clearly reflect that there’s no indication that TAA is actually the origin of the quote. There’s no reason to even be vague on the matter, since the sources have shown no support.

However, I don’t agree that it was unreasonable to think that TAA would say such a thing. As have been pointed out, he has in the past said similar things and has a long record of saying generally offensive and stupid shit. Believing that the quote was accurate was not some extreme leap; it’s was entirely in keeping with his demonstrated behavior.

The idea that TAA might advocate a lowering of the age of consent is about as controversial as George Bush telling people to vote Republican.

It turned out to be without foundation in this case, and that fact should be made clear, but anyone saying that it was unreasonable to believe the attribution is either stupid, ignorant, or lying through their teeth.

“I think the difference in punishment between child rapists and child molestors should be more significant, with molestors perhaps simply attending mandatory therapy for their first offense. I also think that the age of sexual consent should be lowered to 12 or 13. ”

That’s 100% definitively him. If he didn’t say these exact words, fine, but he has said he’d like to see the age of sexual consent lowered to 12 or 13.

The idea that TAA might advocate a lowering of the age of consent is about as controversial as George Bush telling people to vote Republican.

The quote PZ posted is almost isn’t something TAA said exactly, but TAA did state he thought the age of consent should be lowered to 12 or 13 around the same time the book was published (The book the quote was supposedly from was 2007, the real quote was 2006). TAA himself admitted to thinking so at the time and has since gained a more “mature” opinion on the subject.

So the idea that TAA advocated lowering the age of consent isn’t controversial, it’s fact. He just didn’t use the words PZ quoted.

Oh, dani, you made the most common mistake of the (bullshit) artist: not knowing when to stop.

The MRM is chock full of guys who rant about how men should want to fuck teenage girls, even if said men are old enough to be the father or grandfather of the teenage girl in question. Because evolution and first sperm in, or something. Also, agency. Also, Romeo and Juliet and everybody in the Middle Ages was hooked up at 14. Also also, benevolent patriarchy.

That quote didn’t come from TAA. It could easily have come from just about anywhere else in the MRM. And, as has already been pointed out, you hardly have to dig deep to find Warren Farrell saying something rapey.

It sounds suspiciously like the same idiotic idea proposed by one of Eric Hovind’s pals on “Creation Today”: something along the lines of “if evolution is true, does that mean rape is OK (since it’s all about reproduction and ‘survival of the fittest’)?” Obviously, someone with only the shallowest understanding of both evolution and human social structures would ever come to that conclusion.

I do agree that an apology would be in order. Even though I wouldn’t be surprised if he had said this and I have indeed seen it floating around the internet lately so you’re not alone in being wrong. You could just strike that comment and talk about this one instead..
“Rape isn’t fatal. So imagine my indignation when I saw a chatroom called “Rape Survivors.” Is this supposed to impress me? Someone fucked you when you didn’t want to be fucked and you’re amazed that you survived? Unless he used a chainsaw instead of his dick, what’s the big deal? … The word survivor applies to people who are alive after being stabbed 73 times with an ice pick or mauled by rabid wolverines, not to a woman who gets dick when she doesn’t want it. Just because you got raped, you have to rape the English language? You vindictive bitch! Also, don’t you ever get tired of being the victim? How many failed relationships are you going to blame on a single violation of your personal space? ”

Wow, give dani a compliment and then they just go into full on smug self-righteousness. I guess their motive was exactly what I feared the whole time and was exactly the reason why I bristled at the passive aggressive barbs.

I smelled that last response coming a mile away. Probably the prior combination of extreme smugness and talking like xe thought of hirself as an outsider. And the last bit was so characteristic of MRAs and other wanna-be oppression victims. Instead of saying, “Oh, well, you guys have confounded my expectations of feminists by listening to me checking up on this. Maybe my assumptions are wrong,” xe twisted it into how the folks here are just as bad as xe thought and xe made the only effort to keep everyone honest.

I have always felt that ambivalent emotion, when i see those naughty Christians who stick with the unscientific stupid assertion that our universe is only six thousand years old (Young Earth Creationism) and those pseudo-scientific evolutionary naturalist atheists who blindly and faithfully believe the bullshit, baseless and unproven claim that all life evolved from one microbe and that “third level-macro-evolution” of a new genus or higher rank in taxonomy is a scientific fact without supporting this bizarre claim with some solid evidence.

Look, those naughty Christians are some how good people, because they believe in Jesus Christ and the Bible (God’s Word), what makes them *somehow good people* is that they do have the noble, pure humane moral system, (regarding to marriage and other social issues).

They can distinguish what is right and what’s wrong based on the (Holly word), but unfortunately they misinterpreted the holly book by interpreting those science related parts in a very literal way, In that way they became science’s (number one enemy).

First, they had confronted with the great 17th century scientist Galileo Galilei when he scientifically rejected Geocentrism and championed the scientific fact regarding Heliocentrism, even the bible never claimed Geocentrism or flat earth, but they always misinterpreted the holly word and they always manipulated it for political agendas.

Today, they insist that the six day creation of the universe are literal six days ( 24 hour days) which represents their misunderstanding but not what actually the holly book teaches.

What they did is that they hijacked the real faith and the holly book not only that but they went so far with there ignorance and attempted to mangle science by their misinterpretations.

****

Though I’m a creationist (Muslim) [Islam teaches the six day creation thesis, but uses the word day to account on different long periods] I feel distaste about those Young Earth Creationists but on the other hand its a hard thing for me to accept looking the christian moral system collapsing before our eyes due to the powerful secular atheist monster.

Atheism never had a fixed source to build a moral system which could embrace the human goodness and could control the evil.

Atheism as a flawed believe system (due to its inability to prove its claim that there is no such a thing like *GOD*) it failed to embrace human goodness and good morality because it’s very basic concept which it based its ideology is degrading the human organism by claiming that a human is a mere animal (in the jungle) which come by chance and evolved from a microbe thus the human existence on earth is purposeless.

Darwinism poisoned and rotten the minds of the atheist community from those early communists up-to today’s libertarians (who think they should be free to do everything they like), In addition to those who believe that the poor people should suffer because we live in a world ruled by the *survival of the fittest* to those who justify committing every bad and inhumane crime simply by the agreement and the consent of the victim (Whether its mental enslavement, rape or even murder).

I’m deeply afraid that in some day we may find ourselves dealing with some people who are demanding to legalize black slavery based on mutual consent or to legalize f*cking female cattle or goats, or to legalize brainwashing and exploiting the weak because they had the consent of the victim.!!

****

All of this chaos, brutality and self-destruction is caused by so many years of preaching and indoctrination of naturalism/Darwinism as a scientific religion and mocking the real religious morals which always depicted the human goodness, human honor (Not just an animal but more then that) purity and civilization.

Note:[ Much of atheists (especially those who are racists) accept the Darwinian theory of evolution and they believe that humans are not from one race rather they are from Apes and that they are cousins of Chimps, they subconsciously believe that Black Africans ( and African Americans) are still in the process of evolution from Apes to humans (Still they are not fully evolved so they are more like chimps), we must expect (as a possible result) that in some day those racists may demand legalizing brainwashing non-white citizens and using them as slaves based on their full consent.!]

***

The dilemma that many people face is:

1.I can’t support the flawed unscientific Christian assertion that earth was created within six (24 hour) days literally.

2. I can’t let my self to support another much more flawed godless animal (they are humans but they claim that they are no more then an evolved microbe or Ape) who never understands the very purpose of human existence (God’s test of human choice to their ultimate future by providing liberty to choose between Evil and Good, and the judging them according to what they have chose in the judgment day] the value of the honored human being, and don’t get what it means to be a civilized human being which is more then an animal can have noble morality.

3.I’m a Muslim but i can’t support those minority who twist religion for hate and horror, and i don’t know to deal with those majority who have the right faith but are so backward and never interest in science, technology and development. (I’m alone, a science lover, religious and embrace liberty)

Look the first worldview has the faith and the noble morality but denies science then leading its followers in to skepticism and backwardness.

The second, has 99% of the true science but unfortunately uses the trick of bait and switch to use science as a vehicle for atheism and godlessness which as separate ideology from the fact based science by mangling those 99% with 1% of unproven, flawed and nonsense assertion that the truth about life is based on third level macro-evolution or speciation to higher rank in taxonomy.

***

The *AMAZING ATHEIST* is an atheist so why PZ Myers is criticizing his fellow atheist? ……… wait a minute, i was thinking about if there is a criteria that distinguishes atheists? Is there a criteria that distinguishes which atheist is good and which is bad?

The only way evolution comes into play here is in a pragmatic, rather than a moral sense. For instance, if the author were to promote the idea that since babies are plump, tender, and helpless, Nature’s Law says that we’re free, even encouraged, to eat them, it would be easy to see that any population that thought that would be quickly on their way to self-enabled extinction.

What does the Darwinian religion says about slavery of the (Chimps and blacks) are they not fully evolved into humans?

What does the *Nature’s law* ( The code name of the Darwinian religion) says about the sociology of the survival of the fittest?

The law of evolution (tell me, which one?) does not set clear parameters for sexual maturity. Humans have complex, prolonged development — we’re an altricial species, helpless at birth and requiring a long period of nurturing before fully independent.

I know PZ Myers is relatively morally good human but PZ, you have to know that you can’t stop the EVIL and the side effect of Darwinism if you at the same time preach Darwinism as a scientific fact ( you already know that its a baseless theory), this means you can’t have a humane moral and at the same time say humanity is a purposeless ANIMAL. (You know we are more then an animal) we are the only intelligent life on the universe.

Wow, Kalid the amazingly boring creationist has returned to lie about science, Islam and continue the trial of unsubstantiated claims glued together mindlessly.

The *AMAZING ATHEIST* is an atheist so why PZ Myers is criticizing his fellow atheist?

I’m a Muslim but i can’t support those minority who twist religion for hate and horror, and i don’t know to deal with those majority who have the right faith but are so backward and never interest in science, technology and development. (I’m alone, a science lover, religious and embrace liberty)

can’t let my self to support another much more flawed godless animal (they are humans but they claim that they are no more then an evolved microbe or Ape) who never understands the very purpose of human existence (God’s test of human choice to their ultimate future by providing liberty to choose between Evil and Good, and the judging them according to what they have chose in the judgment day] the value of the honored human being, and don’t get what it means to be a civilized human being which is more then an animal can have noble morality.

To quote the Mythbuster’s, “There’s your problem. You believe in an imaginary deity. You can’t demonstrate its existence with solid and conclusive physical evidence. Everything beyond that statement of your delusional belief is bullshit, since it is based on delusions.
Either put up the solid and conclusive physical evidence for you imaginary deity, evidence that will pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers, as being of divine, and not natural (scientifically explained), origin, or shut the fuck up about it.

Kalid,
How does being an atheist prevent one from asking oneself what kind of world one would prefer to live in and what sort of morality would best facilitate realizing that world? There are many philosophers who have tackled the question of morality without ever making reference to deities or religion.

There are entire branches of psychology that look at how ethical behavior advantages or disadvantages its practitioner. And as I mentioned earlier, there have been a lot of game theory studies that show that strategies similar to the Golden Rule and related scriptural precepts are winning strategies. Deities are not necessary to explain morality. All that is needed is to realize one is a conscious, self-aware and other-aware being in a society of social mammals.

A baseless theory with a million or so scientific papers backing it, both directly and indirectly, and exactly ZERO papers backing your imaginary deity being the cause of live on Earth. Whose the real fool, with their head up their ass. It isn’t PZ Kalid, and I would say look in the mirror, but you can’t see in one with your head up your ass.

kalid, I’m afraid I saw your comment as I’m just about to go out for the evening – but thank you for making me laugh. There are so many, so very many things that you mention only to demonstrate extremely clearly that you have completely failed to understand them. Lets just note, for starters, that you obviously have no idea of the meaning of the word “consent”.

You also have no idea what “fit” means.

I’m delighted to see that you “embrace liberty”, though, and that you

can’t support those minority who twist religion for hate and horror

Good for you. And my sympathies; that must be very problematic for you as a muslim – just as it is problematic for xtians and believers in every other religion humans have invented, who are every last one of them faced with the reality that they are surrounded by people who do “twist religion for hate and horror”.

If by some remote chance you are genuinely interested in the difference between “X and I have reached the same conclusion about the total lack of evidence for supernatural beings such as ghosts, gods, goblins etc.” and “X must therefore be a good person with whom I agree about everything”, then stick around.

Kalid, you’re in luck with that second question, Darwin actually did say what he thought would happen with society.

Here is what Darwin said: “As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is, before we look at them as our fellow-creatures.”

Which is to say, Darwin figured that humans would probably eventually set aside our differences and recognize each other as people first and foremost. The ability to do that is, after all, what defines the most successful societies.

@158
Have you considered that purposeless morals are the actual topic? What you are observing is a community deciding what is right and proper behavior. Beings you are told what to believe by a book & your priests, you don’t get much opportunity to hash out these kinds of points.

The answer to your dilemma in 156 pt 3 is to educate yourself in morality, ethics, and science OUTSIDE the strict confines of Islam (especially the Koran). Sooner or later, you’ll see that the overbearing shadow of religion necessarily poisons science. Fundamentalists of all religions choose to ignore/trample/twist science wherever science appears to conflict with religion. Religious dogma cannot handle assimilating new facts–resolving conflicts takes decades or centuries but science takes a fraction of that time. Eventually religion must either yield the point or take up violence & intrigue to stop science.

Ditto the argument for systems of morality. However, there is more room to argue against advances in morality because morality relies less on empirical data and allows additional choices to be made in the construction of a moral system. The trend, however, is very similar: discussions of morality are combated or corralled by religious authorities. These religious authorities are motivated more by creating or maintaining their own power structures & less about entertaining important changes. So we end up with religious authorities that immorally defend honor killings, rape, child molestation & concentration camps because it maintains power and tradition. At the end of the day, we would be better served by recognizing that the nature of humans & human society is prone to these kinds of behaviors (seeking authority, maintaining power through violence, etc). We need to examine our morals regularly and be open to improvements while likewise being skeptical of any purported authority.

but PZ, you have to know that you can’t stop the EVIL and the side effect of Darwinism if you at the same time preach Darwinism as a scientific fact ( you already know that its a baseless theory), this means you can’t have a humane moral and at the same time say humanity is a purposeless ANIMAL.

PZ doesn’t teach “Darwinism”. PZ teaches evolution theory. “Darwinism” is a fake, slanderous term invented/appropriated by creationists as a strawman. The last time “darwinism” had any relevance as a scientific term was almost a century ago.

Humans are animals. That is fact. End of story.

It is notable how authoritarian thinkers like kalid cannot wrap their brains around the fact that being an animal does not automatically equate to “purposeless”.

Kalid, nice attempt to troll and deflect attention away from one of the main discussion topics with a bunch of stale old bull-patties.

You should try to stick to the main topic at hand, which concerns the ethical issue of age of consent and sexual activity for girls. And since you’re here, perhaps you’d like to weigh in on the morality of a man in his 40s marrying a 7 year old girl and having sexual intercourse when she was 9? …No doubt a tale somewhat familiar to you as a professed Muslim.

…And do you agree with child marriage currently still being practiced in nations of a certain creed? Families giving little girls away to old men for marriage, what do you think of that? And how ’bout polygamy?

Do you believe that’s a “law of nature”, or moreso a law of mankind?

You shouldn’t compare 19th century mores to the context of the more enlightened political correctness that emerged in the late 20th century. (May I direct your attention to archive.org, where you can read “Bible Defence of Slavery” online – racism was prevalent across the board at that time.) And you shouldn’t conflate the colloquial definition of “animal” (meaning “beast”) with the scientific definition, which means “an organism with muscles, capable of independent movement”.

The answers to your other tiresome straw-allegations can most certainly be found on any of a number of YouTube discussions.

You know, if Kalid thinks that atheists follow the ‘religion of Darwinism’, then he must believe that we revere everything Darwin himself said – which, according to him, must mean we’re racist. Yet these are direct quotes from The Descent of Man:

But the most weighty of all the arguments against treating the races of man as distinct species, is that they graduate into each other, independently in many cases, as far as we can judge, of their having inter-crossed. Man has been studied more carefully than any other animal, and yet there is the greatest possible diversity amongst capable judges whether he should be classed as a single species or race, or as two (Virey), as three (Jacquinot), as four (Kant), five (Blumenbach), six (Buffon), seven (Hunter), eight (Agassiz), eleven (Pickering), fifteen (Bory St. Vincent), sixteen (Desmoulins), twenty-two (Morton), sixty (Crawfurd), or as sixty-three, according to Burke.

Now when naturalists observe a close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes, and dispositions between two or more domestic races, or between nearly-allied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that they are descended from a common progenitor who was thus endowed; and consequently that all should be classed under the same species. The same argument may be applied with much force to the races of man.

As it is improbable that the numerous and unimportant points of resemblance between the several races of man in bodily structure and mental faculties (I do not here refer to similar customs) should all have been independently acquired, they must have been inherited from progenitors who had these same characters.

As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.

So, Kalid, care to explain how we can possibly be racists if the founder of our supposed religion, who we supposedly worship, obviously wasn’t? Or are you willing to admit you’re talking a load of shite?

You should try to stick to the main topic at hand, which concerns the ethical issue of age of consent and sexual activity for girls. And since you’re here, perhaps you’d like to weigh in on the morality of a man in his 40s marrying a 7 year old girl and having sexual intercourse when she was 9? …No doubt a tale somewhat familiar to you as a professed Muslim.

Actually I was thinking about *Humans Natural Moral Law* which accepts that a biologically and emotionally mature human male can marry with a biologically and emotionally mature female human, but not a prepubescent child.

The legal age of consent is arbitrary. Some people might be able to enjoy sex in a mature fashion at an earlier age, others might be best off avoiding it for a few extra years. But we don’t have a way to measure sexual maturity………………., we abide by one arbitrary dividing line. But picking the moment of first menstruation is also arbitrary — it says nothing about human behavior, or the ability to be responsible for one’s actions, or readiness to cope with the burdens of a possible pregnancy.

When Mohamed consummated with that girl she was exactly at the age of puberty also she was emotionally and psychologically ready to cope with, also her parents and even *she* agreed with this marriage, and the interesting thing is that before she married Mohamed she was engaged with another man and when that engagement ended she married Mohamed.

As PZ said the legal age of consent is arbitrary also the age of sexual and emotional maturity is arbitrary.

Some people might be able to enjoy sex in a mature fashion at an earlier age, others might be best off avoiding it for a few extra years.

The thing that is absolutely wrong is to generalize one puberty age as a LEGAL age of marriage and even Islam never generalizes this phenomenon or makes it a LEGAL age but it makes the condition that both the girl and her parents must determine if its appropriate (If the girl is mature).

…And do you agree with child marriage currently still being practiced in nations of a certain creed? Families giving little girls away to old men for marriage, what do you think of that?

I don’t agree with the prepubescent (both biologically and psychologically Immature) child marriage even i wouldn’t call that a *marriage* but an unethical crime against children.

But a sexually and psychologically mature girl could marry another sexually and psychologically mature man.

Do you know that this man (Mohamed) married a 40 year old woman when he was just 25 years old? how do you account that age difference?

Look, both of them were mature humans, they both can have a sex, you know its natural, a mature heterosexual couple can marry each other and love each other.

If you are asserting that a forty years old woman is sexually exploiting a man in his twenties or vice versa, Why you don’t apply the same judgment of moral appeal (sexual exploitation) to they GAY people? ( You know that the gay husband f*cks the wife gay) is that an exploitation or what?

As you know Gay apologetic groups and lesbian apologetic groups base their philosophy on Darwinism *Natural Law* the law of the jungle (Animal Law) so they say; as long as we are animals and animals in the jungle do homosexuality then homosexuality is a natural law do you agree with them?

If you accept Legalized homosexuality and you know that its derived from the Darwinian Natural Law (Animalism) then why you wouldn’t apply the same judgment that killing and eating a human being could be legalized (If the victim agrees with that) as long as hyenas in the jungle kill and eat each other? ( I know that this is disgusting but I’m just illustrating this kind of logic).

As you know Gay apologetic groups and lesbian apologetic groups base their philosophy on Darwinism *Natural Law* the law of the jungle (Animal Law) so they say; as long as we are animals and animals in the jungle do homosexuality then homosexuality is a natural law do you agree with them?

Natural law is bullshit. Your deity is imaginary, making your religion and religious fuckwittery stupid and irrelevant. The real question is are people born gay? Evidence points that way. In which case your imaginary deity made a mistake, or nature doesn’t give shit. If the latter, why should we give a shit. Unless you believe delusionally in phantasms.

f you accept Legalized homosexuality and you know that its derived from the Darwinian Natural Law (Animalism) then why you wouldn’t apply the same judgment that killing and eating a human being could be legalized (If the victim agrees with that) as long as hyenas in the jungle kill and eat each other? ( I know that this is disgusting but I’m just illustrating this kind of logic).

You don’t have logic. You have your bigotry. Take your imaginary deity out of your beliefs. Take your religion out of your beliefs. Then point to the real evidence that gays are as fully human as you are. They exist. You deal with that. I don’t need to.

From a scientific standpoint, perhaps, but from a moral standpoint the real question is, does gay sex between consenting adults harm anyone? And since the clear answer to that is no, stigmatizing gay sex and denying gay people equal rights is clearly wrong, regardless of whether or not they are born gay.

I don’t agree with the prepubescent (both biologically and psychologically Immature) child marriage even i wouldn’t call that a *marriage* but an unethical crime against children.

OK. This shows that you have at least the potential to become a decent human being. But you have a long way to go (you haven’t put “consent” in there yet) and a lot of bigotry to get rid of.

But a sexually and psychologically mature girl person could marry have any mutually agreed relationship which is genuinely uncoerced in any way with another sexually and psychologically mature man person or persons.

FIFY

kalid, how about you tell us what “consent” means? (and “fit”, while you’re about it)

Jesus fuck, really? this moron again? And now he is pretending that barely pubescent girls are psychologically mature enough to be raped by marry much older men? Well done, Kalid, you have not only demonstrated an impressive degree of ignorance and a complete lack of intelectual honesty, you are now proudly showing you are also a disgustingly inmoral human being.

Notice dear lurkers, the logical fallacy committed by somebody who claims to be rational and logical. Kalid presupposes that without a deity, atheists must invent one, and invent a religion around that deity. His fallacious fuckwittery tries to show that Darwin is that deity. And Darwin’s thinking must be the basis for our morality.
It’s the old everybody must have a deity fallacy, and must therefore have a religion bullshit. Kalid can’t grasp the concept that atheists have no deity, hence no religion. And we usually see religion as means of oppression of people.
Without any deity, or holy book, what atheists have to do is to look at morality without preconceptions. Ask the questions, like are women the equal to men. When the answer yes comes, it dictates further thinking about what that means. Essentially it isn’t that hard to picture all of humankind as equals. It also means asking questions about what is truly informed consent, based on age, age differences, maturity, etc. The picture may be messy, but it is slowly being improved, but the religious keep trying like hell to pull everybody back to their hatred and make everybody behave by their imposed and illogical rules.

When Mohamed consummated with that girl she was exactly at the age of puberty

I believe early puberty can cause health problems – including making pregnancy dangerous. So, if Mohamed was as virtuous as he is reputed to be, he should not have consummated at all for that reason, if no other.

also she was emotionally and psychologically ready to cope with, also her parents and even *she* agreed with this marriage

The whole reason there IS an age of consent is that children who are too young can be persuaded to ‘give consent’ without fully knowing and/or understanding what they’re consenting to, so the claim that Aisha gave consent at age 9 is irrelevant, even if it’s true. Also, the reason age of consent laws do not have a ‘parental permission’ exception is that there have been plenty of occasions where the parents of a child have been party to that child’s abuse.

The thing that is absolutely wrong is to generalize one puberty age as a LEGAL age of marriage and even Islam never generalizes this phenomenon or makes it a LEGAL age but it makes the condition that both the girl and her parents must determine if its appropriate (If the girl is mature).

If the girl is mature, then the girl is old enough to decide for herself – perhaps with advice from her parents, but that’s all. However, the girl herself is not really the best person to decide if she’s mature enough to make that decision, and the parents are not necessarily the best people either – which is why there are age of consent laws.

I don’t agree with the prepubescent (both biologically and psychologically Immature) child marriage even i wouldn’t call that a *marriage* but an unethical crime against children.

So you basically agree with the statement in the OP then – that ‘when they hit puberty’ is the appropriate age of consent, and therefore base your position entirely on the basis of whether they’re physically capable of full sexual intercourse, and emotional or psychological readiness doesn’t matter. Tell me, do you also then agree with the next part and that having sex with someone who is not prepubescent therefore automatically doesn’t constitute rape?

Do you know that this man (Mohamed) married a 40 year old woman when he was just 25 years old? how do you account that age difference?

Look, both of them were mature humans, they both can have a sex, you know its natural, a mature heterosexual couple can marry each other and love each other.

If you are asserting that a forty years old woman is sexually exploiting a man in his twenties or vice versa, Why you don’t apply the same judgment of moral appeal (sexual exploitation) to they GAY people? ( You know that the gay husband f*cks the wife gay) is that an exploitation or what?

You really don’t get the idea of ‘informed consent’, do you? And the difference between that and ‘uninformed consent’, from the looks of it.

As you know Gay apologetic groups and lesbian apologetic groups base their philosophy on Darwinism *Natural Law* the law of the jungle (Animal Law) so they say; as long as we are animals and animals in the jungle do homosexuality then homosexuality is a natural law do you agree with them?

Actually, I find that, most often, groups and people arguing for gay rights only point to the fact that homosexuality happens in animals in response to claims that homosexuality is unnatural. And your argument is that it happens in animals, and therefore it’s wrong for humans to do it. So, given those two arguments together, homosexuality is simultaneously wrong because it’s unnatural and wrong because it happens in nature.

If you accept Legalized homosexuality and you know that its derived from the Darwinian Natural Law (Animalism) then why you wouldn’t apply the same judgment that killing and eating a human being could be legalized (If the victim agrees with that) as long as hyenas in the jungle kill and eat each other? ( I know that this is disgusting but I’m just illustrating this kind of logic).

First of all, in nature, it is rare, if not entirely unknown, for the creature being eaten to consent to being eaten. To mirror that in human society leads to widespread murdering, with all the negative things that go along with that. Secondly, cannibalism only works with what you call ‘the Darwinian Natural Law’ within certain circumstances, such as parents eating some of their young to ensure the stronger ones survive. Humans are generally not in a situation where that’s needed or a wise idea, even leaving aside any laws being broken to do it.

Oh kalid, you really are adorable. Sort of like a puppy that isn’t housebroken yet, but it’s so cute you can’t even get mad when it shits on the carpet.

Of course, the shit still stinks.

As you know Gay apologetic groups and lesbian apologetic groups base their philosophy on Darwinism *Natural Law* the law of the jungle (Animal Law)

First, no gay rights groups argue like that. Prove me wrong. Give us a quote.
Second, evolutionary theory provides no support for natural law.
Third, natural law is complete bullshit and I doubt anyone around here particularly cares about it.

As you know Gay apologetic groups and lesbian apologetic groups base their philosophy on Darwinism *Natural Law* the law of the jungle (Animal Law)….

As we know, kalid is babbling dishonest nonsense again.

The only time “natural law” ever gets brought up in the homosexuality debate it is by homophobes like kalid trying to use it to justify their bigotry. And the only time that same sex activity in the animal kingdom is ever brought up is when responding to and refuting those arguments.

The likelihood that Aisha, at age nine, in that time and place, in those environmental conditions, without the benefit of a modern diet, was anywhere near even the beginning of puberty, is exceedingly small.

If there is a passage in the Koran or any other tradition that states she was, I give it 50:50 for being a lie told after the fact to whitewash the reality of a child rape.

Even if she had reached puberty, she was not in any position to give meaningful consent. She had been promised to Muhammad, who at that time was a bigwig. There’s no way she could have refused, so there’s no way she could give consent.

If there is a passage in the Koran or any other tradition that states she was, I give it 50:50 for being a lie told after the fact to whitewash the reality of a child rape.

According to wikipedia, there were attempts to retcon her older, starting only a few centuries later and still ongoing today.

I can’t speak to the legitimacy of their arguments, but it strikes me as awfully convenient that they’ll happily trust the traditional Hadith right until they say something inconvenient. It’s quite reminiscent of how most Christians treat their bible.

You know, if Kalid thinks that atheists follow the ‘religion of Darwinism’, then he must believe that we revere everything Darwin himself said – which, according to him, must mean we’re racist. Yet these are direct quotes from The Descent of Man.

First, I would like to thank you for this quote, it really illustrates my point.

Did we originate from two human couples (Adam and Eve) or we did originate from at least 10,000 genetically different individuals?

There may have been a couple of “bottlenecks” (reduced population sizes) in the history of our species, but the smallest one not involving recent colonization is a bottleneck of roughly 10,000-15,000 individuals that occurred between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. That’s as small a population as our ancestors had, and—note—it’s not two individuals.

This is absolutely clear that he is claiming that we have never been a single race but many races and chimps and Apes are within those races as far as we are supposedly (Apes).

The question is; How could you refute *SCIENTIFIC RACISM* (mostly subconsciously believed by some Darwinists) while you are actively asserting that humans are not descended from a single couple ? In what sort of scientific evidence would you like to reject the roots of RACISM (the one that is derived from evolutionism)?

Note: I don’t mean that you or other people in this thread are all racists (as you assumed) but I’m just illustrating the possible consequences of embracing Darwinism.)

As it is improbable that the numerous and unimportant points of resemblance between the several races of man in bodily structure and mental faculties (I do not here refer to similar customs) should all have been independently acquired, they must have been inherited from progenitors who had these same characters.

So again, DO WE ORIGINATE FROM A SINGLE COUPLE (ADAM AND EVE) OR WHAT?

How does this above quote be interpreted? this is very problematic, I mean Darwin believed that chimps and other Apes share the same evolutionary origin with humans.

When you are saying that life is evolved through *Speciation to a higher taxonomic rank* and that chimps and humans are Apes How could you avoid that within the human species there are superior races and inferior races?

As far as the chimp is an ape, just like humans within the same taxonomic group but is inferior due to its low intelligence ( you know that Apes are classified as great apes and lesser apes).

This is absolutely clear that he is claiming that we have never been a single race but many races and chimps and Apes are within those races as far as we are supposedly (Apes).

What’s absolutely clear here is that you don’t have the slightest grasp on either biology, evolution or basic reading comprehension.

How does the fact that humanity experienced a population bottleneck imply that we’ve never been a single race? Never mind the fact that “race” is a highly problematic concept to being with, how does the absolute number of people tell you anything about how many sub-populations it was divided into?

How could you refute *SCIENTIFIC RACISM*

Via the scientific fact that people from around the world really aren’t particularly different. We’re really quite a homogenous bunch and our few differences are hardly relevant from a social or legal perspective.

Evolution simply gives no support for racist ideas.

So again, DO WE ORIGINATE FROM A SINGLE COUPLE (ADAM AND EVE) OR WHAT?

No, we don’t.
Sounds to me like you think that evolution is something that occurs on an individual level. That’s a common misconception held by people who talk about evolution without actually studying it.

Evolution takes place in populations. Our common ancestors were a group. We can never trace our ancestry back to a single breeding couple. Rather, we stem from a breeding population of thousands of individuals.

When you are saying that life is evolved through *Speciation to a higher taxonomic rank* and that chimps and humans are Apes How could you avoid that within the human species there are superior races and inferior races?

As far as the chimp is an ape, just like humans within the same taxonomic group but is inferior due to its low intelligence ( you know that Apes are classified as great apes and lesser apes).

For one, different racial groups aren’t separate species, so your logic goes off the rails right there. Moreover, the fact that it’s possible for two populations to differ in ability doesn’t mean that it must be the case. If you want to argue for one race being superior to another, you have to actually show that this is the case. Simply pointing out that it could be doesn’t cut it.

Holy fucking shit are you ignorant O_O
No, seriously, you need to become aware of this. You are using words and i know you think they mean something and that the bullshit you spew from your brain makes any kind of sense whatsoever (and you even delude yourself thinking that not only is it coherent or meaningful, but it’s also a “gotcha”), but it really doesn’t. Even at the most basic level, i mean, you don’t even know what the concept of race is in biology, so when you (mis)use the word, you look very, very stupid.

As long as almost all of the above reply comments are same with each other, I would summarize my point in here:

***

First, I’m here wondering the amount of hypocrisy expressed in most of those comments, I mean its so troubling when you are not dealing with really honest people.

Here I want to clarify that I’m not anti-gay nor pro-gay ( context here i mean i don’t want to support nor criticize) although I distaste Homosexuality but that is my opinion and i do respect those who are different from the norm, but we need to openly discuss things otherwise we have to be totalitarians (censorship) democracy is all about freedom of speech and that a citizen can openly discuss social issues (without any bigotry committed against him).

Remember some of you were committing blasphemy but here in the free-thoughts blog we do have freedom of thought so lets stop yelling shitty loud sounds and debate like reasonable humans.

Here is my argument I’m expressing my opinion you can refute my argument and I’m ready to accept that if my argument is a flawed or inconsistent with the laws of logic.

Here is my question:

1. If we accept homosexuality (a homosexual mind in a heterosexual body) as a morally good, natural and legal why we do hypocritically bigot and condemn other (deviant from the norm) sexual habits like exhibitionism (people who masturbate or have sex publicly) and those incestuous couples? why we wouldn’t legalize them? (look they are consenting couples they even don’t hurt anybody).?

2. What is the moral criteria that accepts ( a man to be married by another man legally) and rejects (a man to marry his dad) (or a man to marry his mother) (or a man to marry his sister) ( and sex in public) while all these deviant habits are based on consent? why we won’t lobby to be legalized?

@LykeX

— Can you elaborate what is the source that you derive your morality from?

— How could you distinguish what is moral from what could be immoral?

— How does the scientific knowledge and intellect shapes your worldview regarding morality?

— As long as we are purposeless animals what sense of value does life gives you?

— As long as we are mere animals why we wouldn’t abide the law of nature in our social life?

— If natural law is not acceptable in our social life what is the alternative coherent law and how can we determine what is good and whats bad? If your answer is leading to a fixed human ideology like one you may think its good what makes your ideology a holly one and other ideologies evil?

And by the way I was thinking how many years it will take for the lobby of the *Amazing atheist* to succeed to legalize pedophilia and i wonder what would be the new STAMP that would be invented for those who oppose it, i guess it would be something like *Pedophobes* (Pedophobia).!!

Or may be pedophobian hate groups or pedophobian bigots, or something like that i just don’t know.!!!

And its weird that Naturalists who always embraced naturalism as a science and a philosophy to reject social naturalism, ………what was that? is there some one who opposes (Social naturalism)? We are animals so why we won’t socialize our life like ANIMALS or we are something more then an animal? this is a troubling question is a complete confusion.

We are animals, we came by chance, we are purposeless, we are Apes, all that is based on natural law so why we won’t behave like other apes? I can’t answer cuz there is big dilemma here!!!

@193
Fuck me.
See, when you come here claiming that you are looking for honest discussion and you say stupid shit like that, it really is difficult to believe you are even real.

Here I want to clarify that I’m not anti-gay nor pro-gay ( context here i mean i don’t want to support nor criticize) although I distaste Homosexuality but that is my opinion and i do respect those who are different from the norm

Translation: I’m anti-gay, just not violently so.

If we accept homosexuality (a homosexual mind in a heterosexual body) as a morally good, natural and legal why we do hypocritically bigot and condemn other (deviant from the norm) sexual habits like exhibitionism (people who masturbate or have sex publicly) and those incestuous couples? why we wouldn’t legalize them? (look they are consenting couples they even don’t hurt anybody).?

Homosexuality IS natural, is morally neutral and is, thankfully, legal. Homosexuality is not just a behaviour, that would be an homosexual act, for which you don’t have to even be attracted to your own gender. It’s a physiological characteristic of a brain. Exhibitionism is a behaviour, one that DOES NOT involve consenting individuals, which is the whole fucking point of it being illegal. Let’s see if you can understand this. I’m male. If i fuck another male in my own fucking home, it has nothing to do with you. It doesn’t involve you in any way, shape or form. If i fuck him, or a woman, or i have a wank in front of you without your consent, that’s exhibiotism. See the difference?
As for incest, the main problem is reproduction as it frequently entails higher risks. While i have no interest in it whatsoever, i really don’t have much of a problem with incestuous relationships as long as they happen among consenting ADULTS. Since i assume you find this a moral atrocity, i’d like for you to give me one good reason which does not involve your imaginary god, or a subjective statement, for why such a relationship should be legally or societally prohibited.

What is the moral criteria that accepts ( a man to be married by another man legally) and rejects (a man to marry his dad) (or a man to marry his mother) (or a man to marry his sister) ( and sex in public) while all these deviant habits are based on consent? why we won’t lobby to be legalized?

You seem to be obsessed with incest, Kalid.
Again, i’ll try to make this easy for you. Marrying another man is NOT the same as marrying your father or your sister. It’s just not, as you can probably tell by the fact that the other man you are hypothetically marrying is neither your father nor your sister. So legalizing one thing does not require in any way legalizing the other, because they are separate issues, just like having legal male-female marriage doesn’t have anything to do with making interspecific marriage legal. Do you understand the concept of separate issues?

I come from Spain. We’ve had marriage equality for 9 years now. Our society is MUCH better off for it and somehow, can you believe it, we don’t have people marrying their parents, or marrying dogs. Amazing isn’t it?
You are very ill equiped to have discussions about morality since you don’t even have a moral system at all, all you have is a set of (really stupid) rules to obbey (and you fail to even do that). That’s not morality. When it comes to the nuances of complex societal phenomena and the struggle to find what works best for everybody, you don’t even know how to approach them except by your black and white, bronze-age set of silly rules.

Oh, and as a final note, i distaste you, but i would never try to make you illegal or ignorantly claim that you are unnatural.

This is a fucked up view of homosexual sex between two men. It’s predicated on rigid roles for men and women in society. The “man” does the fucking, and the “woman” gets fucked. Sorry. I’m a man. I’m gay. I enjoy getting fucked and fucking. Neither has any bearing on masculinity or femininity.
Kalid, stop talking about things you know nothing about.
Yes, that would mean you’d switch to radio silence.

1. If we accept homosexuality (a homosexual mind in a heterosexual body) as a morally good, natural and legal why we do hypocritically bigot and condemn other (deviant from the norm) sexual habits like exhibitionism (people who masturbate or have sex publicly) and those incestuous couples? why we wouldn’t legalize them? (look they are consenting couples they even don’t hurt anybody).?

Exhibitionism isn’t illegal. Porn for example, is perfectly legal.

What is illegal is indecent exposure – which is when you force your sexuality upon others. The reason being basic consent – I do not consent to being a captive audience to your genitals for example.

Incest is illegal for much the same reason – within a familial relationship there are often power dynamics at play. For example a parent’s authority over their child, or an older sibling’s authority over a younger. This is why in a lot of the world the rule holds true in cases where the child was adopted.

There is some debate on how valid this is however, as not everywhere agrees that such is a major concern. Incest is legal in Turkey for example, as well as the Ivory Coast, Taiwan and India.

That said, the basic concern with how consenting such a relationship is, is the same reason why it is generally frowned upon for say a lecturer to have sex with a student, or a boss to have a sexual relationship with a staff member.

You may notice something of a running theme here regarding secular sexual ethics – the deep concern with un-coerced consent. A concern that is entirely absent from your religion, which only bothers itself with what God wants or doesn’t want, not what your sexual partner wants or doesn’t want.

That central issue is why your religion is basically unethical with regards to sex – the central concern is never with your partner. The argument is never whether consent is really attained.

This is also why your religion is immoral in general – you base your moral precepts not upon harm or benefit to other human beings, but what your God wants.

And often what that is, is harmful. Islam has a terrible record with slavery and child abuse even to this day.

Why how long ago was it that we heard of a Mullah raping a child in Afghanistan, only for that child’s parents to declare that they wanted to kill their child? That the parents had the support of the community, that the police took the child from the shelter that was protecting her and delivered her to the people who wanted to kill her?

That is your morality in action, that is Islam in action – because the child doesn’t matter. She is not a person, she is a stain on family’s honour because she was raped.

And I am not just condemning Islam here, divinely mandated morality in Ireland produced the same results, producing horrors like the Magdelene laundries.

We need only look to the Quiverful Christians of America to see the same things – the same hate, the same death.

With the rise of secular values however, those horrors become crimes we punish, they become things we strive against rather than socially accepted norms, or “our culture”.

Because divine mandate is no longer how we judge whether something is right or wrong, we now judge it by whether it harms others, and harm can include how it impacts upon their freedom, their ability to consent.

We do not judge justice as being done when vengeance is achieved, we judge justice being done when the wrongdoer is not punished, but corrected.

For we do not value your God, we do not value the good opinion of one we judge more powerful than us, we value you. The plain, often stupid and ignorant, and sometimes glorious ascended ape that is you.

This is why within the secular world you have the right to disagree – you can even hold onto your religion if so desire.

But just ask yourself this, with your objective morality and defined list of things that are right and wrong what freedom is there in places where expressing your atheism can get you killed?

What morality is there in places where rape victims face worse consequences than the rapists?

What decency is there in places where parents see their child hurting and demand its death?

1. If we accept homosexuality (a homosexual mind in a heterosexual body) as a morally good, natural and legal why we do hypocritically bigot and condemn other (deviant from the norm) sexual habits like exhibitionism (people who masturbate or have sex publicly) and those incestuous couples? why we wouldn’t legalize them? (look they are consenting couples they even don’t hurt anybody).?

Homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality–these are all morally neutral. Morality is about making a distinction between good/bad or right/wrong actions between people as a basis for a social code of conduct. Sexuality is an expression of an individual. There is nothing inherent to sexuality that harms others, so there is no moral component to being a lesbian, bisexual or heterosexual.
Engaging in homosexual or heterosexual sex isn’t innately moral or immoral. Such actions can become immoral if, for instance sex occurs without consent (*rape*), or an adult has sexual relations with a minor.

………are you ignorant O_O
No, seriously, you need to become aware of this. You are using words and i know you think they mean something and that the bullshit you spew from your brain makes any kind of sense whatsoever (and you even delude yourself thinking that not only is it coherent or meaningful, but it’s also a “gotcha”), but it really doesn’t. Even at the most basic level, i mean, you don’t even know what the concept of race is in biology, so when you (mis)use the word, you look very, very stupid.

Since your deity doesn’t exist, and the story of adam and eve is mythology, nobody has to study logic or be an expert in science to give the correct answer: OR WHAT. The fact that you can’t get your head out of your religious bullshit means you have nothing cogent to say, period. And it show.

And its weird that Naturalists who always embraced naturalism as a science and a philosophy to reject social naturalism,

Quit using naturalism. It is a prejudicial term used by stupid delusional fools like you, which is nothing but meaningless noise that sounds sciency. But then you keep speaking and show you know nothing about science, and how science is done. Just your own bigotry, hatred, and idiocy, caused by your delusional believe in your imaginary deity, and think a book of fiction is a holy book.

Thank you for pointing out the obvious issue of potential differences in power dynamics, i forgot to address it directly when i simply assumed a relationship between fully consenting adults in my post.

I’ll shift my argument and i will try to understand why In America we bigot incestuous couples and why people won’t Marry their parents or siblings or dogs.

You really are hard of thinking, aren’t you? First, the “In America” part is irrelevant; either something is immoral or it isn’t, and geography has nothing to do with it. Second, azhael @ 195, brucegorton @ 198 and Tony! @ 199 laid out the basic moral principle: put simply, what consenting adults choose to do is ok. So bestiality is out–animals cannot consent. Incest, as brucegorton shows, is a gray area, since it often involves power dynamics which make consent impossible. But if, for example, two siblings are separated at birth and meet up later as adults, and decide to get married, what right does the state have to deny them?

Can you actually understand English? I mean, I’m guessing the answer is actually ‘no’ because the quotes from Darwin’s work show completely and totally that, as far as Darwin was concerned, the human race was just that – the human race, singular. Yet you seem to think those quotes show the exact opposite, due to some bizarre interpretation you have that seems to make you conclude that, according to ‘Darwinism’, it is impossible for a species and/or race to be all of the same species and/or race unless every member of it evolved from a single progenitor couple. You don’t seem to understand a basic fact – that evolution, even the original version, as written by Darwin himself, works slowly on entire populations. It isn’t the case that a member of a species gives birth to a different species, it’s that a population of a species slowly evolves, through multiple generations, until it is a different species from the original species.

Oh, and Kalid, whilst you were looking up ‘Race’ on Wikipedia, you might want to look up the entry which talks about race as applied to humans. You might find it illuminating (unless you misunderstand it so severely, you conclude it to mean the exact opposite of what it says, like you did with those Darwin quotes):

Tony I’m really sorry if my argument offends you and i promise i will stop using this harsh language, enjoy your freedom.

I’m the last person who’s going to get offended by harsh language (bigoted slurs are a different story though).

I’ll shift my argument and i will try to understand why In America we bigot incestuous couples and why people won’t Marry their parents or siblings or dogs.

You missed my point about morality, I take it. You also missed brucegorton’s excellent comment @198 too. We don’t “bigot” incestual relationships. Bigotry has a specific definition:

Bigotry is the state of mind of someone who, as a result of their prejudices, treats or views other people with fear, distrust or hatred on the basis of a person’s ethnicity, race, religion, national origin, gender, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or other characteristics.

While I’m thinking about it, you really ought to familiarize yourself with the concept of consent and why it is vital in relationships.

Sexual consent plays an important role in defining what sexual assault is, since sexual activity without consent by all parties is considered rape. Children or minors below a certain age, the “age of consent”, are deemed not to be able to give valid consent as understood in law to sexual acts in most jurisdictions. Within the literature concerning sexual activity and consent, there is no consensus on a strict definition of the term consent or how it should be communicated. Consent must be voluntary and not obtained by coercion or threats. Consent can be revoked at any moment. Hall defines sexual consent as “the voluntary approval of what is done or proposed by another; permission; agreement in opinion or sentiment.” Hickman and Muehlenhard state that consent should be “free verbal or nonverbal communication of a feeling of willingness’ to engage in sexual activity.”Pineau has argued that we must move towards a more communicative model of sexuality so that consent becomes more explicit and clear.

Informed consent is a process for getting permission before conducting a healthcare intervention on a person. A health care provider may ask a patient to consent to receive therapy before providing it, or a clinical researcher may ask a research participant before enrolling that person into a clinical trial. Informed consent is collected according to guidelines from the fields of medical ethics and research ethics.
An informed consent can be said to have been given based upon a clear appreciation and understanding of the facts, implications, and consequences of an action. In order to give informed consent, the individual concerned must have adequate reasoning faculties and be in possession of all relevant facts at the time consent is given. Impairments to reasoning and judgment which may make it impossible for someone to give informed consent include such factors as basic intellectual or emotional immaturity, high levels of stress such as PTSD or a severe intellectual disability, severe mental illness, intoxication, severe sleep deprivation, Alzheimer’s disease, or being in a coma.
Some acts can take place because of a lack of informed consent. In cases where an individual is considered unable to give informed consent, another person is generally authorized to give consent on his behalf, e.g., parents or legal guardians of a child (though in this circumstance the child may be required to provide informed assent) and conservators for the mentally ill.
In cases where an individual is provided insufficient information to form a reasoned decision, serious ethical issues arise. Such cases in a clinical trial in medical research are anticipated and prevented by an ethics committee or Institutional Review Board.
Informed Consent Form Templates can be found on the World Health Organization Website for practical use

Morality (from the Latin moralitas “manner, character, proper behavior”) is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are “good” (or right) and those that are “bad” (or wrong).[citation needed] Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc., or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with “goodness” or “rightness.” Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e. opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles

Animal/human relations do not involve relationships between consenting adults, and as such, bringing up bestiality has no bearing in a discussion about homosexuality.

Incestual relationships are considered bad culturally, and have been enshrined into law, but I am not certain that they should be illegal. If it involves a lack of consent, or between an adult and a child, I firmly believe that should remain illegal. But relations between two consenting adults, as much it doesn’t appeal to me, should not be illegal.

Homophobes are bigots because they have negative, prejudicial opinions of homosexuals based on their sexuality, which has no bearing on the quality of their character. But as I said, homosexuality doesn’t have a moral component, so people should not judge others based on it. It’s neutral. Like all other humans, homosexuals should be judged by the content of their character, not whom they love or share their bed with. Bigots argue that it’s immoral because gay people sleep with members of the same sex, but that act does not bring harm to its participants (provided it is consensual adult relations). From a moral perspective, without any harm being done to the people in a homosexual relationship, there’s no immorality.

I know that these kind of discussions are disgusting but anyway we have already reached this point, people are free in their sexual desires.

As long as sexual interactions are between consenting adults, it should be no one’s business what people are doing in bed.

(And again sorry if any part of comment touches you in a personal manner but here i am specifically dealing with other Non-gay sexual habits)

Your comments annoy me because they’re wrong and/or based on poor information. You think men and women are supposed to adhere to rigid gender roles that tell us what our proper place is. I think that’s limiting and harmful-hence patriarchy and misogyny.
I also don’t think you understand what morality means between humans, as brucegorton pointed out upthread. Your idea of morality is based upon right and wrong through the lens of an invisible, inaudible, unknowable, undetectable entity, rather than filtered through the lens of human interactions. What makes an action good or bad right or wrong depends on the harm or benefit said action has on other humans, not what an invisible, inaudible, unknowable, undetectable entity purportedly says.

— Can you elaborate what is the source that you derive your morality from?

Mainly empathy. I want to be free and happy, so I favor a society that maximizes freedom and happiness for all. The details may get a bit tricky at times, but as a general principle I think it’s perfectly straightforward.

— How could you distinguish what is moral from what could be immoral?

By its effect on people’s lives. Actions that make people’s lives better are moral. Actions that make lives worse are immoral. This follow directly from what I said above.

— How does the scientific knowledge and intellect shapes your worldview regarding morality?

Science can tell us about what effects certain actions may have and thus whether they’re moral or not. Again, this follows directly from the previous two answers.

— As long as we are purposeless animals what sense of value does life gives you?

I don’t accept that we’re purposeless animals. Seems to me we’ve got plenty of purpose. E.g. today I had planned to visit my mother, so for that purpose I took the bus out to see her.

Your problem is a common theistic one: You think of values as something objective. They’re not. Things have value to somebody. As such, if I decide to value something, then I’ve got values. If I decide on a purpose, then I’ve got one. Case closed.

— As long as we are mere animals why we wouldn’t abide the law of nature in our social life?

I don’t accept the existence of laws of nature, in any prescriptive sense. The laws of nature are purely descriptive. They describe what happens. They don’t tell us what to do.

I suspect that what you really mean is “why should we refrain from doing what we’d like to do, with no regard for consequences to others?” In that case, I refer you to my first answer: Empathy.

— If natural law is not acceptable in our social life what is the alternative coherent law and how can we determine what is good and whats bad?

Asked and answered. Empathy tells us what to aim for, science tells us how to hit the mark.

If your answer is leading to a fixed human ideology like one you may think its good what makes your ideology a holly one and other ideologies evil?

I’m not sure it does. Morality isn’t a set of rules set in stone. Reality is too complicated for that. Moral systems can only give us guiding principles and then we can evaluate individual cases based on those principles. There’s no substitute for independent thought.

Now that I’ve answered your questions, would you like to address anything I’ve said? For example, how do you distinguish between what is moral and immoral? If, hypothetically, a fraudulent verse had been inserted into the Qur’an, how would you detect it?

Your problem is a common theistic one: You think of values as something objective. They’re not.

That’s not a problem, and it’s not theistic. God’s a subject, remember?

While we’re at it, do you think the subjectivist gets to escape the Euthyphro dilemma? Put your name in there, instead of “God” or “Zeus” or “the Vatican” or whatever. What result are we supposed to get?

Things have value to somebody. As such, if I decide to value something, then I’ve got values. If I decide on a purpose, then I’ve got one. Case closed.

That’s the only thing you needed to say, not the rest.

I don’t accept the existence of laws of nature, in any prescriptive sense. The laws of nature are purely descriptive. They describe what happens. They don’t tell us what to do.

I suspect that what you really mean is “why should we refrain from doing what we’d like to do, with no regard for consequences to others?” In that case, I refer you to my first answer: Empathy.

You can regard empathy as simply a descriptive matter too, a factual state of affairs about your brain (and mine, and most everyone else’s) and other aspects of your relationship to the rest of the world. It doesn’t “tell us what to do” either, because our empathy can easily be misapplied. For example, I have no doubt that some MRAs empathize with men who they think are being treated unfairly, which is fine on its own I guess, but that empathy can obviously take them in all sorts of unsavory directions. Same with racists, same with glibertarians, always the same — these are not a bunch of monsters totally lacking in empathy itself. They are not reasoning about the facts correctly, which is an objective way of talking about this, instead of this silly need people feel to subjectivize it for no reason.

Amphiox:

The laws of nature have zero relevance to moral questions because morality can only exist where there is choice.

That doesn’t exactly follow. “Should” implies “can.” For example, if I told you that you should violate the conservation of energy (let’s say), it’s not something you can do, so it isn’t something that you should do. So, like all facts, they are relevant in that sense. It’s not the fact that you are making choices which matters here, just that it’s something that could (or could not) happen. Telling people to violate physics is one way of doing it, but so is telling them to do something which is simply contradictory: they can’t both do and not do it. Asking for the impossible, whatever that amounts to, is unreasonable, and morality shouldn’t be unreasonable.

That’s not a problem, and it’s not theistic. God’s a subject, remember?

Sure, but most theists are not willing to admit that god’s rules are subjective. They want them to be objective and they talk like it. I thought I detected that sentiment in kalid’s statements.

While we’re at it, do you think the subjectivist gets to escape the Euthyphro dilemma? Put your name in there, instead of “God” or “Zeus” or “the Vatican” or whatever. What result are we supposed to get?

I don’t need to escape the dilemma. If I say it’s good, then it’s good, because I said so. I’m happy to impale myself on that horn because I don’t claim my position as objectively true.

I know I can’t objectively demonstrate the “goodness” of empathy, so I don’t even bother trying. I don’t claim that my position is objectively superior to anyone else’s. I claim that it’s superior, according to my evaluation. That’s all anyone ever has and it’s all I need.

I only accept one moral authority: Myself.

You can regard empathy as simply a descriptive matter too, a factual state of affairs about your brain (and mine, and most everyone else’s) and other aspects of your relationship to the rest of the world. It doesn’t “tell us what to do” either, because our empathy can easily be misapplied.

Certainly. I’m not claiming that the existence of empathy makes certain things moral. The one telling you that empathy is relevant beyond mere description is me. As I said, I’m the authority. You can accept what I say or not, but I accept it and will act in accordance with it.

Same with racists, same with glibertarians, always the same — these are not a bunch of monsters totally lacking in empathy itself.

Not lacking, but I’d argue that they are deficient, since they exclude some people from their “circle of empathy” (so to speak).

They are not reasoning about the facts correctly, which is an objective way of talking about this, instead of this silly need people feel to subjectivize it for no reason.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean by this. What is it that you think is being subjectivized for no reason? Which facts are you referring to?

Sure, but most theists are not willing to admit that god’s rules are subjective. They want them to be objective and they talk like it. I thought I detected that sentiment in kalid’s statements.

So what you said is not true. As long as that’s cleared up….

I don’t need to escape the dilemma. If I say it’s good, then it’s good, because I said so. I’m happy to impale myself on that horn because I don’t claim my position as objectively true.

So you’re a command theorist (but apparently not a divine one). It’s a little surprising to see someone admit that openly and immediately.

I don’t think that’s even a coherent way of talking about what’s good or bad. What you think makes no difference at all, to what has been good for anybody else, ever, in all of history. You’re at most talking about what’s good for you, and that’s not what good is generally (which is not the same as “objectively”). So you’re not even talking about ethics, generally, just about your own personal inclinations. Why shouldn’t we talk about ethics in general: what happens to people other than you, and what their evaluations are if they aren’t identical to yours?

I only accept one moral authority: Myself.

I don’t accept myself as an authority. I don’t think we need “authorities,” because authoritarianism is stupid and pointless and harmful. Conflating objectivity and authority is par for the course (especially with these William Lane Craig-style theists you wanted to complain about), but it’s still surprising to see an otherwise reasonable person just say it like that.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean by this. What is it that you think is being subjectivized for no reason? Which facts are you referring to?

I’m not clear on what I’m supposed to have said that isn’t true. I didn’t claim that all theists asserted objective morality, only that it was a common position. Am I missing something here?

So you’re a command theorist (but apparently not a divine one). It’s a little surprising to see someone admit that openly and immediately.

It is? I wasn’t aware that this was unusual. Seems to me that this is the only kind of morality that anyone ever has. We make a judgment about what’s right, according to certain core ideas, and then we act accordingly.

If you’ve got an alternative, I’d love to hear it.

You’re at most talking about what’s good for you, and that’s not what good is generally (which is not the same as “objectively”)

I’m not sure if I understand this correctly. I’m talking about what I, subjectively, think is good, in general.

I could make arguments according to enlightened self-interest and try to convince people that empathy is beneficial to them, but that would be another subjective appeal. While a common notion, there’s no objective reason why self-harm should be considered bad.

Why shouldn’t we talk about ethics in general: what happens to people other than you, and what their evaluations are if they aren’t identical to yours?

My evaluation includes caring about other people’s evaluations, within certain limits. I’m not clear on where the disagreement is.

If their evaluations are different from mine, it depends on the circumstances. For example, because I value freedom, I’m not willing to tell people they’re wrong when it comes to purely personal choices, that affect noone else.

I’m not clear on what I’m supposed to have said that isn’t true. I didn’t claim that all theists asserted objective morality, only that it was a common position. Am I missing something here?

You said that it’s a problem, that it’s theistic*, and that values can’t be objective**. That’s what I think is false.

*Which I take to mean it is genuinely, not according to somebody’s confused bullshit about it. Also, I’m not a theist, and my position on it isn’t “theistic” in any sense of the word, nor is that the case with the majority of ethical philosophers (who are mostly atheists) so your characterization of it just seems to be based on ignorance.
**Again, it matters what that genuinely means, not some nonsensical irrelevant thing that confused people say but don’t actually mean.

My evaluation includes caring about other people’s evaluations, within certain limits. I’m not clear on where the disagreement is.

So it isn’t good just because you said so, or just because of your own subjective experiences or a consequence of your own perspective. Disagreeing with yourself is something you have to clear up on your own.

Why are we suddenly talking about science and mathematics? I thought we were talking about moral values.

I completely agree that that would be a silly argument, but I don’t recognize it as anything I’ve ever said. You’re going to have to explain what your point is.

Because people are and will remain subjects, no matter what the topic is that we happen to be talking about. The form of the argument is exactly the same. If those are objective pursuits, the argument isn’t sound. So it’s pretty obvious why it isn’t sound. Sorry I didn’t spell everything out in detail, but sometimes I get tired of saying this shit over and over.

Incest is illegal for much the same reason – within a familial relationship there are often power dynamics at play. For example a parent’s authority over their child, or an older sibling’s authority over a younger. This is why in a lot of the world the rule holds true in cases where the child was adopted.

What the hell is that? what about if someone calls you incestophobic? people are free, you can’t use that harsh language isn’t it?

What sort of power relationship? What about if two biologically twin partners want to marry each other? What if father and his son want to marry each other if they had the same power, and both of them are adults?

Anyway I think its about a matter of time and this will be legalized.

@azhael #195

As for incest, the main problem is reproduction as it frequently entails higher risks.

What ….? how could you use such a moral appeal to hate Incestuous marriage, (you pretend that you care about an unborn child) don’t you f*cking remember that Abortion (murdering human child in the womb) is also morally good and legal right?

How could you dare to pretend that you embrace the value of the unborn (living) human (child) while you don’t have any problem of murdering a (living) human child (in the womb of his mother)?

I’m unbelievably astonished about the depth of the Hypocrisy expressed in here; my eyes are about to explode when I’m reading those comments.

There is some debate on how valid this is however, as not everywhere agrees that such is a major concern. Incest is legal in Turkey for example, as well as the Ivory Coast, Taiwan and India.

Here once you hate incestuous couples by using a moral appeal (one is more powerful than the other) and you again justify incestuous marriage by pointing areas in our globe that embrace these sort of sexual desires, which one of your contradicting two opinions does really belongs to you?

That said, the basic concern with how consenting such a relationship is, is the same reason why it is generally frowned upon for say a lecturer to have sex with a student, or a boss to have a sexual relationship with a staff member.

And those kind of relationships have nothing to do with incestuous marriage, if you mean that consent is affected that someone has more money relative to the other then I don’t know what to say, this is a completely irrelevant, if you mean something else like difference in age then what about two twin brothers or sisters to have a right to engage in an incestuous legal marriage?

the deep concern with un-coerced consent. A concern that is entirely absent from your religion, which only bothers itself with what God wants or doesn’t want, not what your sexual partner wants or doesn’t want.

That central issue is why your religion is basically unethical with regards to sex – the central concern is never with your partner. The argument is never whether consent is really attained.

Nice attempt to hide in the sand but unfortunately this is not working it’s not even a valid argument.

Here you are making things up from your mind, I do absolutely disagree with you and even I’m challenging you to give me one Quranic or haddith verse that justifies coerced consent, you are using a straw-man argument.

And often what that is, is harmful. Islam has a terrible record with slavery and child abuse even to this day.

Another bullshit lie, Islam always condemned slavery and even much of Islamic teachings encourage abolishing slavery even today you can find in the Islamic doctrine too much textual evidence that Islam discouraged and actually abolished slavery.

Why how long ago was it that we heard of a Mullah raping a child in Afghanistan, only for that child’s parents to declare that they wanted to kill their child? That the parents had the support of the community, that the police took the child from the shelter that was protecting her and delivered her to the people who wanted to kill her?

Either you are lying or you are a 100% ignorant about Islam, you know what; if you are honest you need to do some research about the issue you can’t conflate cultural traditions with the whole Islamic doctrine, (Islam never teaches *Honor Killing* that is a bad cultural habit, which has nothing to do with Religion) otherwise why would you criticize the *amazing atheist* we can apply the same judgment atheism is just like that, why you won’t apply the same judgment of the communism and Marxism they are atheist ideologies is that how atheism works? Bullshit!

That is your morality in action, that is Islam in action – because the child doesn’t matter. She is not a person, she is a stain on family’s honour because she was raped.

And again you are talking about morality when you mutated terribly the whole epistemological meaning of what could really be a moral or ethical, you embrace murdering human child which is not even fully grown in his mother’s womb but actually is a really living human (abortion) you can’t talk about morality man, honestly rephrase your word, may be you meant something else.!

For we do not value your God, we do not value the good opinion of one we judge more powerful than us, we value you. The plain, often stupid and ignorant, and sometimes glorious ascended ape that is you.

Man you are so hilarious, I wonder what sort of shit you are talking about?

Why you won’t value *The Amazing Atheist* (He is just an animal and he want to apply the *Natural Law* the very same law that tells him that he is a mere animal).?

This is why within the secular world you have the right to disagree – you can even hold onto your religion if so desire.

That is Liberty and I respect that otherwise its Totalitarianism no one is imposing or coercing you with anything everyone here is just expressing his right to speak, I don’t no why would you question the secular world that we do live in, its a reality!.

What morality is there in places where rape victims face worse consequences than the rapists?

What decency is there in places where parents see their child hurting and demand its death?

I don’t know how an adult human who think that he is a logical man needs to talk about good morality when he haves no problem with killing a living human child which is so young and helpless in the womb, how could someone who haves no problem with incestuousness can talk about good morality it’s so hypocritical and very inconsistent to be able to comprehend!?

don’t you f*cking remember that Abortion (murdering human child in the womb) is also morally good and legal right?

Ye nonexistent gods, you’re a moron. Non viable fetuses are NOT PEOPLE. Fetuses become people when they become viable and are BORN. It’s telling that your stupid religion gives more rights to a clump of non thinking cells than a fully functional human being who is already a part of society.

Homophobes are bigots because they have negative, prejudicial opinions of homosexuals based on their sexuality, which has no bearing on the quality of their character. But as I said, homosexuality doesn’t have a moral component, so people should not judge others based on it. It’s neutral. Like all other humans, homosexuals should be judged by the content of their character, not whom they love or share their bed with. Bigots argue that it’s immoral because gay people sleep with members of the same sex, but that act does not bring harm to its participants.

What about if someone says: “The *Amazing atheist* argument that a 12-13 year old girl is able to make consent seems quite reasonable because a 13 year old girl is a rational human and biologically she is mature (puberty) but the only obstacle for her to enjoy here right to have sex and marry legally to whom she loves is the Pedophobic bigotry, (Remember Gay people took long time to fight the bigotry and defend their right, The APA only removed homosexuality from its official list of psychological disorders in 1973) If pedophiles lobby enough to defend their right they can let those young girls to enjoy their sex and live with whom they love”?

What if a new movement organizes itself to lobby for the rights of young girls to enjoy having sex with whom they love, and if they demand that the current age of sexual consent is pedophobic and hate groups ( as long as pedophobes deny the rights of those young girls to manage their own life)?

I think this will a huge theme in the next decade if the *Amazing atheist* succeed to get enough money and media support for his case.!

Non viable fetuses are NOT PEOPLE. Fetuses become people when they become viable and are BORN.

I have to say YES unborn (living humans) in the womb of mothers are HUMANS and YES they are LIVING and YES, MURDERING them is a crime against them, you justify killing them because they cannot defend their right to born and enjoy life as you do?

How can you justify murdering a living human fetus in them womb? because he/she is helpless they can’t defend they right to born and enjoy life?

Another bullshit lie, Islam always condemned slavery and even much of Islamic teachings encourage abolishing slavery even today you can find in the Islamic doctrine too much textual evidence that Islam discouraged and actually abolished slavery.

Funny how the Arab slave trade lasted through to the 20th century, with the last country to ban slavery being Islamic Mauritania in 2007.

In the 1950s about 20% of Saudi Arabia’s population were slaves. But hey, its not like that’s where Mecca is or anything.

Mohammed himself was a slave trader. He bought and sold slaves.

The most that could be said about Islam and slavery is it restricted just who could be a slave (down to non-Muslim prisoners of war and those born into it) and extended some rights to those enslaved.

Actual abolition was largely down to colonial forces.

Kalid, I am an atheist, I am not a Muslim, I shouldn’t have to tell you this. I shouldn’t have a better knowledge of your religion than you do – and yet it is clear that I do.

Non viable fetuses are NOT PEOPLE. Fetuses become people when they become viable and are BORN.

I have to say YES unborn (living humans) in the womb of their mothers are HUMANS and YES they are LIVING and YES, MURDERING them is a crime against them, you justify killing them because they cannot defend their right to born and enjoy life as you do?

How can you justify murdering a living human fetus in the womb? because he/she is helpless they can’t defend their right to born and enjoy life cuz they are not viable?

Did they reached the legal age of consent ( not to be raped but to be murdered)?

My point is that they are too young to be asked a consent or assent to be killed, (Even if they become adults its illegal for them to give consent or assent to be killed).

If the some parents can make a legal consent or assent for their children in the womb to be murdered why its illegal for other parents to make consent for their children to be raped by pedophiles or why they can’t let their teenage girls to be able to consent in their marriage or to determine their sexual life?

Non viable fetuses are NOT PEOPLE. Fetuses become people when they become viable and are BORN.

I have to say YES unborn (living humans) in the womb of their mothers are HUMANS and YES they are LIVING and YES, MURDERING them is a crime against them, you justify killing them because they cannot defend their right to born and enjoy life as you do?

How can you justify murdering a living human fetus in the womb? because he/she is helpless they can’t defend their right to born and enjoy life cuz they are not viable?

Did they reached the legal age of consent ( not to be raped but to be murdered)?

My point is that they are too young to be asked a consent or assent to be killed, (Even if they become adults its illegal for them to give consent or assent to be killed). and its immoral to be apologetic for parents to determine the death and the life of their children.

If some parents can make a legal consent or assent for their children in the womb to be murdered why its illegal for other parents to make consent for their children to be raped by pedophiles or why they can’t let their teenage girls to be able to consent in their marriage or to determine their sexual life?

What ….? how could you use such a moral appeal to hate Incestuous marriage, (you pretend that you care about an unborn child) don’t you f*cking remember that Abortion (murdering human child in the womb) is also morally good and legal right?

Stupidity galore again. A child is born. A fetus is in the womb. What a stupid unthinking idjit you are, if you can’t even define your terms with honesty and precision. Besides, it all depends on whether or not you see the woman as a full human being with full bodily autonmy. You don’t see the woman as a full human. That makes your fuckwittery immoral. You have no morality. Just slogans.

I have to say YES unborn (living humans) in the womb of mothers are HUMANS and YES they are LIVING and YES, MURDERING them is a crime against them, you justify killing them because they cannot defend their right to born and enjoy life as you do?

Nope, they aren’t human beings yet. Simple experiment. Take a picture directly of this alleged human being. You can’t until it is born. Stupidity all the way around in your drivel. What a stupid loser you are.

Because people are and will remain subjects, no matter what the topic is that we happen to be talking about. The form of the argument is exactly the same. If those are objective pursuits, the argument isn’t sound. So it’s pretty obvious why it isn’t sound. Sorry I didn’t spell everything out in detail, but sometimes I get tired of saying this shit over and over.

I think I see what you mean, so let me try to clarify. The entire process isn’t purely objective or subjective. The goal is subjective, because goals are always subjective. However, once a goal is set, the rest of the process can be objectively determined, whether the goal is to maximize the happiness of human beings, to figure out the general rules of how physical reality behaves, or to trace the logical implications of certain axioms.

So, it’s true that the decision to care about reality and knowledge is subjective, but once you have that, the rest of science can be entirely objective. Same is true about ethics; once core values have been agreed upon, then it’s just a matter of how to best achieve those goals.

However, I don’t see how you can objectively determine the goal to begin with. Seems to me that at some point it has to come down to a simple matter of preference.

I freely agree that some values (e.g. survival or being happy) are so basic that pointing out their subjectivity might seem like pointless fly fucking. Obviously, because we’re all human beings, we will tend to have a lot of agreement on the core points, so I’m not sure how much practical difference this makes.

Maybe you could explain a bit about how it’s possible to have objective values. If I’m missing something obvious that you’ve explained before, feel free to throw me a link.

My evaluation includes caring about other people’s evaluations, within certain limits. I’m not clear on where the disagreement is.

So it isn’t good just because you said so, or just because of your own subjective experiences or a consequence of your own perspective. Disagreeing with yourself is something you have to clear up on your own.

There’s no contradiction here, for the reasons mentioned above. We need to distinguish between the subjective core value and the objective consequences of holding that value. The core value is empathy and it’s based on my personal say-so. As a result of holding that value, I also care about other people’s opinions. That follows naturally and objectively; an inevitable consequence of empathy.

In that sense, I suppose it’s possible for some values to be “objective”, insofar that they follow objectively from other values (e.g. empathy implies a regard for fairness and equality). However, those other values would either be subjective or themselves follow from earlier values. The foundation will still be subjective.

What sort of power relationship? What about if two biologically twin partners want to marry each other? What if father and his son want to marry each other if they had the same power, and both of them are adults?

That situation could probably never happen, as the father in question has massive power to shape the upbringing of the son. The twins situation is I will admit is murkier.

Here once you hate incestuous couples by using a moral appeal (one is more powerful than the other) and you again justify incestuous marriage by pointing areas in our globe that embrace these sort of sexual desires, which one of your contradicting two opinions does really belongs to you?

The undecided. I think it raises serious questions as to whether there is real consent, but there are situations which are murkier than others.

And those kind of relationships have nothing to do with incestuous marriage, if you mean that consent is affected that someone has more money relative to the other then I don’t know what to say, this is a completely irrelevant, if you mean something else like difference in age then what about two twin brothers or sisters to have a right to engage in an incestuous legal marriage?

It only has nothing to do with it, because you look at the issue from the perspective of your religion, in which consent doesn’t matter. The issue with the boss is not that he has more money, but that if say the staff member says no, the boss can take reprisals upon that staff member.

Either you are lying or you are a 100% ignorant about Islam, you know what; if you are honest you need to do some research about the issue you can’t conflate cultural traditions with the whole Islamic doctrine, (Islam never teaches *Honor Killing* that is a bad cultural habit, which has nothing to do with Religion) otherwise why would you criticize the *amazing atheist* we can apply the same judgment atheism is just like that, why you won’t apply the same judgment of the communism and Marxism they are atheist ideologies is that how atheism works? Bullshit!

Of course Islam doesn’t dictate such actions – nor does Christianity. But both religions push an essentially authoritarian concept of morality, wherein morality derives from a God, and that God’s moral authority derives not from his concern for humanity but the fact that he is ultimately powerful.

Morality built from the top down structure that afflicts religion invites horrors, because the concern is not that the weak suffer, but that the powerful are pleased.

Why you won’t value *The Amazing Atheist* (He is just an animal and he want to apply the *Natural Law* the very same law that tells him that he is a mere animal).?

But we do value the Amazing Atheist, much as we disagree with him. In fact it is precisely because we value him that we so stridently disagree with him, we hope he and his followers are swayed to a far better path than the one they are on.

The same is true of criminals – we do not seek to punish to rehabilitate, because those criminals have value as human beings quite aside from any wrongdoing.

Much as we hope the same for you.

Consider how your religion has warped and twisted you into such hatred for gay people, and for that matter, for women.

After all, you demand that they have no choice in what happens to their bodies, that their consent to bear children be overridden by your religious ideology.

Your religion is founded on submission, and submission is founded on domination. We atheists? We aren’t about that. We are about liberation.

Kalid, I am an atheist, I am not a Muslim, I shouldn’t have to tell you this. I shouldn’t have a better knowledge of your religion than you do – and yet it is clear that I do.

Man, I’m sorry but what you have presented is an illustration of utter ignorance and a huge straw-man, even you know nothing about colonial history.

First, Saudi Arabia was not ever colonized by Europeans, Wahabbis and AL-Saud family conquered the Hijjaz region which Mecca and Medina are located when the ottoman empire collapsed after the first world war, and since then up today they are an independent nation called Suadi Arabia.

I’m not even a Saudi nor from an Arab origin and I now that history more then you do, please read some history before you comment.

Second, we are dealing with what Islam says about this issue I mean the *TEXT* can you understand that, people may or may not always abide by what the TEXT says, that is natural phenomenon.

First, Saudi Arabia was not ever colonized by Europeans, Wahabbis and AL-Saud family conquered the Hijjaz region which Mecca and Medina are located when the ottoman empire collapsed after the first world war, and since then up today they are an independent nation called Suadi Arabia.

Yes, and it took until 1962 for Saudi to ban slavery.

Now are you seriously trying to say that Saudi Arabia only started paying attention to what Islam’s holy texts said in, and I say this again, 1962?

Nope, they aren’t human beings yet. Simple experiment. Take a picture directly of this alleged human being. You can’t until it is born. Stupidity all the way around in your drivel. What a stupid loser you are.

Yes we can take pictures actually we do have the latest technology and what we see in the last months is an almost full HUMAN being which DO really lives in a REAL life.

So how do you see murdering a physically handicap child or a child with disability ( they lack a fully functioning body) ?

it all depends on whether or not you see the woman as a full human being with full bodily autonmy.

What about murdering children with special needs, do they all have a full bodily autonomy?

kalid, you do realise that even IF your text was all sweetness and light (which it isn’t) that would not matter a gnat’s fart as long as it is used primarily as a justification for doing evil?

As far as I know (and please correct me if I am wrong) many or most muslims either believe – or behave as if they believed – that female heirs should inherit less than male heirs, that boys should be mutilated (circumcised), that it is good for girls to be far more severely mutilated (FGM), that rape victims should be handed over to their rapist for life (in marriage), that it is acceptable for girls and young women to be raped all their lives (“given” in marriage regardless of their consent or lack of it), that it is acceptable for a husband to beat a wife, that it is acceptable or even mandatory to murder a woman for having any association with a man against her male relatives’ wishes … and that’s a list that could go on for a long time.

Even IF none of those things were really there in your sacred texts, islam would still be a massive source of evil because it is overwhelmingly used to do evil things such as these and many others.

people may or may not always abide by what the TEXT says, that is natural phenomenon.

If those things are recognised and understood as being evil things, then why are there not a million million muslim voices denouncing and rejecting them throughout the Islamic world?

Yes we can take pictures actually we do have the latest technology and what we see in the last months is an almost full HUMAN being which DO really lives in a REAL life.

Not without invading the body of the woman. Who is fully human with full human rights, no matter what you claim. And putting a fetus, who isn’t a baby yet, and only happens with birth, above the woman is degrading the woman. What an idjit you are. Fully stupid and presuppositional doing nothing but mouthing slogans you don’t understand. the consequences thereof.

Necro response to Dani, but I’m sure D wants to be alerted to errors that need correcting, amirite?

dani@ 104

“Perhaps concentrate on the work of the good MRAs instead of searching through 1000s of pages of Warren Farrell to find something a bit rapey. And then using this to justify pulling the fire alarm on a conference tackling male suicide. Just embarrassing.”

Oh excuse me, you’re saying we’re looking too much at the extreme members of your movement, Warren Farrell, intentionally trying to find provocative quotes? I did look for a source on this fire alarm event you mention. While the webs abound with comments from the MRA echo chamber (yep, including your ow) about evil feminists harming conferences on male suicide, the only thing I can find from any official source (UofO-Fulcrum) is that the alarm was pulled during a talk by Janice Fiamengo on “men’s issues and feminism’s double standards” that Janice Fiamengo said was intended to dispel the myth of rape culture. How again does that have to do with male suicide?

What sort of power relationship? What about if two biologically twin partners want to marry each other? What if father and his son want to marry each other if they had the same power, and both of them are adults?

There is so much you don’t understand and your ignorance is making it difficult to have a conversation with you. Brucegorton is talking about power dynamics between an adult and a child.
This discussion might be better served if you deal in facts and reality rather than What if’s. There isn’t a huge movement afoot within the US to allow family members to marry one another, so your questions really are pointless. That bridge can be addressed if and when it becomes significant (and as I said earlier, at the end of the day, two consenting adults should be free to do as they please in a relationship).

Anyway I think its about a matter of time and this will be legalized.

Do you have any reason to think this is so? Is there legislation being proposed in support of legalalizing incest? If there’s no factual based reason to think incest will be legalized, why do you have this belief?

As for incest, the main problem is reproduction as it frequently entails higher risks.

What ….? how could you use such a moral appeal to hate Incestuous marriage, (you pretend that you care about an unborn child) don’t you f*cking remember that Abortion (murdering human child in the womb) is also morally good and legal right?

If you’d done your research prior to entering this discussion, you would know

A common justification given for the incest taboo is the impact inbreeding may have on children of incestuous sex. Children whose biological parents have a close genetic relationship have an increased risk of congenital disorders, death and disability at least in part due to genetic diseases caused by the inbreeding.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incest

As for azhael’s statement, xe didn’t say anything about hating incestual relationships. You’re putting words in hir mouth.
Second, it’s a fetus, not an unborn child. Children are already born.
Third, abortion is not murdering a human child in the womb, it is the termination of a pregnancy. Fetuses are not people, they lack any of the qualities the define personhood, and should not have the same rights as human beings as a result. You can’t “murder” a fetus.
Finally, yes, most of us who value the rights of women fully support their right to bodily autonomy at all times-including during pregnancy. Fetuses do not gain the ability to override a womans’ bodily autonomy simply bc they are within their body. As noted above, fetuses are not people, so they don’t have rights. More importantly, even IF they had rights, those rights would not enable them to make use of a woman’s body without her permission. That’s what bodily autonomy means. You can’t use someone else’s body without their permission, even if it is to save your life. If I’m dying and need a blood transfusion to save my life, I cannot legally compel you to donate your blood, even if it would save my life. Similarly, a fetus cannot make use of a woman’s body to ensure its continued existence. That’s not a right any human being has-dead or alive (you can’t harvest the organs from a dead person without prior consent).

How could you dare to pretend that you embrace the value of the unborn (living) human (child) while you don’t have any problem of murdering a (living) human child (in the womb of his mother)?

I’m unbelievably astonished about the depth of the Hypocrisy expressed in here; my eyes are about to explode when I’m reading those comments.

We’re talking about incest here. It is not hypocritical to recognize that genetic abnormalities may be the result of incestual sexual relationships, while still believing that women have the right to bodily autonomy. The one has nothing to do with the other.

There is some debate on how valid this is however, as not everywhere agrees that such is a major concern. Incest is legal in Turkey for example, as well as the Ivory Coast, Taiwan and India.

Here once you hate incestuous couples by using a moral appeal (one is more powerful than the other) and you again justify incestuous marriage by pointing areas in our globe that embrace these sort of sexual desires, which one of your contradicting two opinions does really belongs to you?

You’re not very good at arguing or following chains of logic.Azhael is not “hating” incestuous couples in that comment. Xe is recognizing that there is a debate over the subject. That’s not expressing an opinion on the subject itself.

Why you won’t value *The Amazing Atheist* (He is just an animal and he want to apply the *Natural Law* the very same law that tells him that he is a mere animal).?

He’s a human being with the rights that all other human beings have. I won’t deny that. But he’s an giant asshole. Based on the things he says, I’ve judged his character and I find him to be scum.

What about if someone says: “The *Amazing atheist* argument that a 12-13 year old girl is able to make consent seems quite reasonable because a 13 year old girl is a rational human and biologically she is mature (puberty) but the only obstacle for her to enjoy here right to have sex and marry legally to whom she loves is the Pedophobic bigotry, (Remember Gay people took long time to fight the bigotry and defend their right, The APA only removed homosexuality from its official list of psychological disorders in 1973) If pedophiles lobby enough to defend their right they can let those young girls to enjoy their sex and live with whom they love”?

You *still* don’t understand what bigotry is.
As for your insipid question, it doesn’t matter what “someone” says on the subject. As the law stands, 12 and 13 year olds on average are not mature enough to make decisions about sexual relationships. The law is based on the potential for harm to the child. That potential for harm outweighs the right of the child in this case.
Also, pedophiles aren’t subjected to bigotry.
Again, stop bringing up What if’s and discuss actual real world situations.

I think this will a huge theme in the next decade if the *Amazing atheist* succeed to get enough money and media support for his case.!

I sincerely doubt that. For all that I disagree with right wingers on virtually everything, I think we’d find common ground on the idea that adults and children should not be legally allowed to have sexual relationships.

So how do you see murdering a physically handicap child or a child with disability ( they lack a fully functioning body) ?

Human beings who are born have personhood conferred upon them. They have the right to live just as other human beings do because of that personhood.
Fetuses are NOT human persons. Though they may be human beings (genetically), they are not human persons. Human persons have rights. Fetuses do not gain those rights until they are born.In any event it doesn’t matter what right or rights a fetus does or does not have. If a fully grown adult could be magically teleported into a woman’s womb, and needed her body for his/her continued survival, they don’t have the right to use her body to survive. The woman would need to consent. If she doesn’t consent, she has the right to terminate. Her body. Her choice.
It’s the same deal as a fetus. They do not have any right to the use of a woman’s body. No human being does. Period. You’re trying argue that human beings can use the bodies of women for their needs, even their very survival, but that is not a right that any human being or human person possesses.

4. Do agree that abortion definitely and inevitably leads to the ultimate death of that poor organism who has not yet born?

5.How could you justify killing that human and also *murder* his right to live the same life that you are enjoying now as long as you also developed from a fetus just like him?

6.Don’t you feel any sense of shame or sympathy when you are about to justify that sort of killing and you also understand that your beloved child was once a fetus not only your child but you (your precious life) and the life of all those whom you love and admire were also once developed from fetuses?

7.If your justification of killing that poor helpless living human (has human DNA) [If you don’t agree that fetus is a human you ought to prove that in a scientific way] If its based on that *FETUS IS DEPENDENT ON HIS MOTHER AND HE/SHE (THE FETUS) IS NOT BODILY AUTONOMOUS* So he/she deserves death, what about those children who fully depend on their parents like the child that haves Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) Does he/she also deserve death sentence?

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. No. Or do you think you’re killing things every time you shit out some E. coli? We clearly have a default system of prioritizing the lives of organisms.
4. Yes. Abortion kills an incompletely formed organism.
5. Whoa. You made a leap there. We don’t cry that we killed a human every time we cut ourselves or rinse out our mouths or shed skin cells without even noticing, but those cause loss of human cells, too. You are abusing the language to take advantage of the ambiguity of “human” used as a modifier and “human” used as an identifier of a whole organism.
6. No. You were once a couple of gametes, too; do you feel like a murderer every time you masturbate, because the life of all those whom you love and admire were also once developed from sperm?
7. A couple of weeks ago we did an exercise at a con where we extracted human DNA from cheek cells. It was human DNA! From human cells! But we weren’t killing any humans. You’re very reductionist. Or at least, you pretend to be.

Also, people with DMD may be dependent on others, just as someday if I’m old and sick I will depend on others. The criterion isn’t whether you’re sick, but whether you’re aware and conscious and functioning…which embryos are not.

7.If your justification of killing that poor helpless living human (has human DNA) [If you don’t agree that fetus is a human you ought to prove that in a scientific way] If its based on that *FETUS IS DEPENDENT ON HIS MOTHER AND SHE IS BODILY AUTONOMOUS* So he/she deserves death, what about those children who fully depend on their parents like the child that haves Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) Does he/she also deserve death sentence?

f your justification of killing that poor helpless living human (has human DNA) [If you don’t agree that fetus is a human you ought to prove that in a scientific way] If its based on that *FETUS IS DEPENDENT ON HIS MOTHER AND SHE IS BODILY AUTONOMOUS* So he/she deserves death, what about those children who fully depend on their parents like the child that haves Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) Does he/she also deserve death sentence?

Not a living human being, which requires being born fuckwitted idjit. Show me the alleged baby the woman is having killed. We can stand across the street from an abortion clinic, and even take close-up pictures. The bet. You will not take one picture of that baby. You will take pictures of women. Now, why is something you can’t see worth more to you than the woman you can see, and has fully human rights including bodily integrity? You do realize that 98.8% of abortions occur prior to viability (notice my link to real evidence, and that you have none….), and that post viability it is to save the life of the woman, or due to fetal death or deformity.
If you think those would be babies with deformities should be born, offer the women full medical coverage for giving birth, and you and your group care for the baby for the rest of its natural life. Funny how anti-choice fuckwits don’t put their money where their mouth is.

Having some trouble with my browser suddenly closing. For some reason, that caused a partial post at #262.

Basically my point was this:
Kalid, I answered your questions, but you have yet to address the points I made, either before or after the questions you asked. If this was a single case, I’d happily consider it an oversight, but I can’t help but notice that this is a general tendency in your behavior, going all the way back to the previous thread.

As it stands, when you have time to ask plenty of questions, but not to address the answers you get or answer any questions of your own, it looks like you’re deliberately avoiding the questions.

Kalid, two questions you are afraid to answer:
1) To paraphrase Tony, o you think I have the right to make use of your body, even if it is to save my life?
2) Why do you think women are not full human beings with total bodily autonomy per UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in particular articles 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, and 18?

Notice how kalid’s arguments are wholly fetus-centric. It is the fetus having x trait, the fetus deserving life/death. Fetus this. Fetus that. Not one thought about the woman. She’s naught but a burlap sack in kalid’s worldview.

6.Don’t you feel any sense of shame or sympathy when you are about to justify that sort of killing

My sympathies are with theWOMAN who is a HUMAN BEING.

and you also understand that your beloved child was once a fetus not only your child but you (your precious life) and the life of all those whom you love and admire were also once developed from fetuses?

The fetus becomes human when it proves that it can survive without VIOLATING THE BODILY AUTONOMY OF A HUMAN BEING, by successfully being born.(Induced birth counts).

Thousands of women (HUMAN BEINGS) die is agony every year because attitudes like yours, kalid, lead to restrictions in safe abortion access. You and all others like you are all murderers by proxy. You have blood on your hands. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Human beings who are born have personhood conferred upon them. They have the right to live just as other human beings do because of that personhood.

Tony do you understand the meaning of this word *Personhood*?

Fetuses are NOT human persons. Though they may be human beings (genetically), they are not human persons. Human persons have rights. Fetuses do not gain those rights until they are born.

Wow! I think you have just coined a new definition of the word personhood!

Fetuses are NOT human persons. Though they may be human beings (genetically), they are not human persons.

Again Tony who told you that the English meaning of the word *personhood* can only apply to some humans and some other humans can’t be *Human persons*?

This can be categorized in some sort of *racism* that the helpless disadvantaged human fetus is inferior and subhuman and that non-fetus humans who had the chance to born and breath in the air are superior

You know what Tony? This specific comment offends me so hard so much so that I feel that someone shot me in the head! ( Do you know that In my past i was once a living fetus, and that I’m waiting my beloved living fetus to born).

How can you deprive the fetus his right to be a person now and in the near future? cuz he is helpless?

When you are dealing human fetuses with this sense of distaste and the notion that they are subhuman creatures isn’t that is a direct offence on other fetuses that loving and caring mothers had in their wombs?

What is the criteria that guarantees you as a person/human to have the right to live and deprives a human fetus the right to live and born? (while both of you are human beings) is it because the fetus is human genetically and living like you but he/she is in so young age and helpless and you powerful (Mother that kills her fetus) you are more powerful and dominant?

Why do you deprive an aborted fetus from his right to live and to born like other fortunate fetuses, Is it the law of the survival of the fittest? as long as the fetus is so powerless and helpless and can’t defend his right to born and to have the chance to enjoy life like you?

Though they may be human beings (genetically),

So you doubt if the fetus is a human genetically or if he may be something else?

In any event it doesn’t matter what right or rights a fetus does or does not have. If a fully grown adult could be magically teleported into a woman’s womb, and needed her body for his/her continued survival, they don’t have the right to use her body to survive. The woman would need to consent. If she doesn’t consent, she has the right to terminate. Her body. Her choice.
It’s the same deal as a fetus. They do not have any right to the use of a woman’s body. No human being does. Period. You’re trying argue that human beings can use the bodies of women for their needs, even their very survival, but that is not a right that any human being or human person possesses.

So you are equating an imaginary adult with a real but so young and so helpless living human fetus to deprive his right to live and born?

Wait a minute …..Tony once you said that the helpless human fetus do not deserve to have the right to be a person now or in the future, again you seem that you changed your tone and say they don’t have right to use to wombs of their mothers without consent, what do you mean by this?

Are you f*cking kidding me?

You previously said that young underage children cannot give a sexual consent with adults and Marrying a 13 year old girl is a rape and pedophilia, I wonder how come your logic justifies you to kill those humans when they are not even born but live in their mothers womb, how could you demand from them a consent to live and use their mothers blood glucose to sustain their life, how do you think they can make life or death consent, I mean in what mechanism would you expect from them to give that consent?

When they are born and reach the puberty why its an immoral thing to demand from them to make a sexual consent? while consenting fetuses is a morally good thing?

Why do you think its a morally good thing that pregnant women can kill their fetus while the fetus can’t give consent?

How does the helplessness of the unborn fetus justifies you to end his life?

a fetus. They do not have any right to the use of a woman’s body. No human being does. Period. You’re trying argue that human beings can use the bodies of women for their needs

I’m just laughing, I don’t even know how to express my feeling in this comment!

Tony, you need to comprehend that the fetus is a human and that he/she is living really and you are full of hate against human fetuses, but Yes they do live and Yes they are humans and YES they deserve to live and enjoy life as many humans do!.

I’m afraid that some people here may have a severe type of *fetusphobia* but for me I love fetuses I respect their humanity, I respect their right to be persons, I respect their right to live and enjoy life as we do and to have the chance to born and to have the chance to go to school and the chance to go for work and Marry then produce another fetus (while they may or may not produce another fetuses) and so on and so on, For the sake of humanity and to embrace humanity and believe me they will guarantee that the human species will survive from extinction.

Tony, you need to comprehend that the fetus is a human and that he/she is living really and you are full of hate against human fetuses, but Yes they do live and Yes they are humans and YES they deserve to live and enjoy life as many humans do!.

I see many assertions, but no reasoning or evidence. Nor do I see any explanation of why this putative human being should have the right to the use of another human being’s body.

In this context we are not dealing with *Legal personality/Business* but natural personhood.

How can you deprive the fetus his right to be a person now

A fetus isn’t a person, and won’t be until it is born. DUH Checkmate stupid idjit. You lose as always.

So you doubt if the fetus is a human genetically or if he may be something else?

Something else, on its way to being human, when it is born. Checkmate fuckwitted idjit.

ut so young and so helpless living human fetus

So what? Your fetus isn’t a full human being, and won’t be until it is born. Checkmate fuckwitted idjit. There is no escape from birth being the dividing line. You lose, as always..,..

How does the helplessness of the unborn fetus justifies you to end his life?

Irrelevant to it being a full human being. The woman is a full human being with full human rights including bodily autonomy. Only if you purposely degrade the human value of a woman to a value below that of a developing fetus, do you have an argument. Since the woman is always a full human being, there is no argument you have. You lose again loser….

I’m afraid that some people here may have a severe type of *fetusphobia* but for me I love fetuses I respect their humanity, I respect their right to be persons,

Who gives a shit about your presuppositional and religious based opinion loser, since you haven’t shown your deity exists. Everything religious beyond that point is drivel And we don’t have to respect or even listen to fuckwittery that you express as an opinion. It is dismissed without evidence, which is nowhere to be seen.

Yes. Personhood is the status of being a person. You are conflating incomplete human being with human person. They are not the same thing. A ‘person’ possesses characteristics and qualities that are not present in a fetus.On the subject of ppersonhood:

Moral personhood
The moral sense of personhood denotes individual beings who are moral agents. Moral agents engage in behavior that can be evaluated as moral or immoral, as morally right or wrong, as morally permissible or morally impermissible. Their acts are blameworthy or praiseworthy. It makes sense to hold them morally responsible for their intentional actions.
{..}
Metaphysical personhood
Metaphysics can be characterized as the study of the nature of reality, in its most basic forms or categories, such as discussion of whether everything that exists is physical (material), or whether there are two ultimate kinds of irreducible stuff, mind and matter. Sometimes the term “metaphysics” is taken to refer to a transcendent realm beyond the physical. But modern secular philosophers commonly talk of personhood in a metaphysical sense without implying the existence of any such transcendent realm.
The concept of metaphysical personhood would be to use personhood as a basic category of reality encompassing beings of a certain type: rational, moral agents, using language, etc. There is no consensus about the exact criteria. Adult human beings are commonly considered persons, and a very interesting question to ask yourself is that of exactly what it is about us that makes us persons. Clearly not having a particular hair color, or even having hair, or being a particular height, or weight, or having a brain, etc. Here are some suggested commonly-suggested criteria:

Rationality or logical reasoning ability
Consciousness
Self-consciousness (self-awareness)
Use of language
Ability to initiate action
Moral agency and the ability to engage in moral judgements
Intelligence
Does having one or more of the above make us a person? Do we have to have all of them? Can we have some minimal set? Does it have to be the same set for all persons?

There is no firm consensus on which qualities one must have to be considered a person, but we know that fetuses have none of these qualities.

More from the link:

Persons and Human Beings
It is common to assume “person” and “human being” mean the same thing, but from what has been described above, this may not be true and in fact most philosophers distinguish between these two types of entity.
“Human being” is a biological designation for those of the species Homo sapiens (or related). Many thinkers hold that a person may or may not be a human being, and a human being may or may not be a person. This may sound very odd to you at first, but please pay attention to how we are using these terms.

For example, in the future imagine that we learn of aliens living on another planet, and these aliens, though not human, behave much as we do, are highly intelligent and rational, use language, talk of moral responsibility, etc. We might grant they are persons, they just aren’t human persons because they aren’t homo sapiens. On the other hand imagine an individual who loses a large amount of brain functioning. Kept alive through ventilators and artificial nutrition and hydration, this unfortunate human being might be considered no longer a person. Such examples are meant to show that we may not be using the concepts of human being and person to mean exactly the same thing.

You are using the terms “person” and “human being” interchangeably. They aren’t the same thing.

I find it funny that you linked to Wikipedia, but you clearly didn’t read much. From your wiki link:

Capacities or attributes common to definitions of personhood can include human nature, agency, self-awareness, a notion of the past and future, and the possession of rights and duties, among others. However, the concept of a person is difficult to define in a way that is universally accepted, due to its historical and cultural variability and the controversies surrounding its use in some contexts.

These are qualities not present in fetuses.
Also, your link to natural person is for legal uses only. It does not describe a person in the colloquial sense.Here is a link to a much better definition of person:

A person is a being, such as a human, that has certain capacities or attributes constituting personhood, which in turn is defined differently by different authors in different disciplines, and by different cultures in different times and places. In ancient Rome, the word persona (Latin) or prosopon (πρόσωπον; Greek) originally referred to the masks worn by actors on stage. The various masks represented the various “personae” in the stage play.

Again, persons have certain capacities and attributes that constitute personhood. Fetuses do not have these capacities or attributes. Fetuses are not people.

And really, I don’t need to go any further. As I said, even if fetuses were people, with the full range of human rights possessed by all other humans, they don’t have the right to use a woman’s body against her desires. That is not a right any human being has, yet you keep trying to give this right to a fetus.
I’ve taken the time to make sure my beliefs are consistent kalid. Nothing in your comments comes close to a gotcha.

****
To everyone else, I think I’m done with this fool. He doesn’t even understand the basics, doesn’t seem interested in learning, and uses poor reasoning and logic. Ya’ll have fun.

Oh, yeah, about that “fetusphobia”…ha ha ha.
If I’m asked to choose which one to support-a woman or a fetus-I will always support the woman. Simple decision, because I value women.
Every woman is important.
The only important fetus is a wanted one.

Kalid, you cannot have a intellectual discussion of abortion if you don’t mention the woman, and put the woman front and center during the entire discussion. All you have is your emotions. Your intellect has shut down…,.

3. No. Or do you think you’re killing things every time you shit out some E. coli? We clearly have a default system of prioritizing the lives of organisms.

YES, If the E.coli that I shitted it out dies out there then I’ve killed it (Although not deliberately) the question is not if someone shitted a living organism out from his body but the question is; Did that organism died or not? Killing again is: Killing is causing the death of a living organism

PZ if you kill a living organism then that is it, you’ve killed that organism!

4. Yes. Abortion kills an incompletely formed organism.

How do define the word *incompletely formed organism*?

If you mean that the fetus lacks sentience, So he/she is not fully formed and then he/she deserves to be deprived from his/her life and to be shitted out like an E.coli how do you account if we apply the same judgment on the person who is wounded so terribly and his body is not in a full form also in a coma? Do you think killing someone in that terrible situation is morally a good thing to do, because he/she is lacking a full body form also he/she is lacking sentience?

PZ, Don’t you understand that this poor, young and helpless human fetus organism which is not yet fully developed deserves to be killed because he/she is not yet fully developed and he/she is so helpless but he/she is in the middle of a process called growth and he has the inherent capacity to be a fully formed baby but you say lets stop him/her from developing lets kill him/her in the way and deprive him/her the chance to be a fully formed human baby?

PZ, why you are so harsh against this little, poor, helpless growing human embryo? ( remember he/she is a living creature)

Why would you hate a little, helpless human living fetus so much so that you will justify killing him/her? I mean he/she is just a developing human fetus?

5. Whoa. You made a leap there. We don’t cry that we killed a human every time we cut ourselves or rinse out our mouths or shed skin cells without even noticing, but those cause loss of human cells, too. You are abusing the language to take advantage of the ambiguity

So you think that a fetus with almost full human organs like brain, lungs, heart, liver, kidneys and all other human characteristics is no more then a pile of billions of human cells warped in an un-sententious weak and helpless human fetus? so what is exactly makes him/her inferior and deserve death is that they still he/she didn’t completed their marathon to breath fresh air and independent life so you want to ambush that developing fetus to kill him!?

6. No. You were once a couple of gametes, too; do you feel like a murderer every time you masturbate, because the life of all those whom you love and admire were also once developed from sperm?

PZ, you gotta be kidding me? tell me?

Do you know that I’m still composed of the genetic material of those gametes, but we were not discussing separate gametes but something living with heart and brain by the name of *FETUS* and still in the process of fully forming, you are attempting to distort the core issue!

Masturbating and wasting sperms is irreverent but I can understand your point, you are trying to equate a sperm cell with a living fetus which has a heart and composed of billions of cells, also it contains some very important organs. so is that an attempt to dehumanize that poor fetus?

7. A couple of weeks ago we did an exercise at a con where we extracted human DNA from cheek cells. It was human DNA! From human cells! But we weren’t killing any humans. You’re very reductionist. Or at least, you pretend to be.

PZ, I’m not talking about a separate DNA but a real living fetus with DNA and also with ORGANS like HEART and BRAIN.

Tell me PZ DOES THE FETUS *A HUMAN* OR NOT?

I mean a human with human characteristics and growing to gain more characteristics?

You know that a 13 year old girl is no fully mature for example psychologically she may not be sexually mature so why you wouldn’t apply the same judgment you have killed that immature human fetus so why you wouldn’t let the *Amazing Atheist* to rape her because she is not a mature adult? (I thought we were eliminating any immature fetuses so why we also sexually exploit psychologically immature girls)?

Why would you like to ambush the development of a human fetus? I’m sure if you let him/her to proceed their life marathon they will be smart people they will go to school they will make this nation much more prosperous they will advance science and technology, do you know what i like them?

the question is not if someone shitted a living organism out from his body but the question is; Did that organism died or not? Killing again is: Killing is causing the death of a living organism…

PZ, Don’t you understand that this poor, young and helpless human fetus organism which is not yet fully developed deserves to be killed because he/she is not yet fully developed and he/she is so helpless but he/she is in the middle of a process called growth and he has the inherent capacity to be a fully formed baby but you say lets stop him/her from developing lets kill him/her in the way and deprive him/her the chance to be a fully formed human baby?….

So you think that a fetus with almost full human organs like brain, lungs, heart, liver, kidneys and all other human characteristics is no more then a pile of billions of human cells warped in an un-sententious weak and helpless human fetus? so what is exactly makes him/her inferior and deserve death is that they still he/she didn’t completed their marathon to breath fresh air and independent life so you want to ambush that developing fetus to kill him!?…

PZ, you gotta be kidding me? tell me?

Do you know that I’m still composed of the genetic material of those gametes, but we were not discussing separate gametes but something living with heart and brain by the name of *FETUS* and still in the process of fully forming, you are attempting to distort the core issue!…..

Tell me PZ DOES THE FETUS *A HUMAN* OR NOT?…

You know that a 13 year old girl is no fully mature for example psychologically she may not be sexually mature so why you wouldn’t apply the same judgment you have killed that immature human fetus so why you wouldn’t let the *Amazing Atheist* to rape her because she is not a mature adult? (I thought we were eliminating any immature fetuses so why we also sexually exploit psychologically immature girls)?

Kalid’s posts continue to be an assault on the eyes. Trying to read them causes every orifice to bleed.

Thousands of women (HUMAN BEINGS) die is agony every year because attitudes like yours, kalid, lead to restrictions in safe abortion access. You and all others like you are all murderers by proxy. You have blood on your hands. You should be ashamed of yourself.

My point is: If the pregnant mother’s health and life is in a risk caused by that pregnancy if doctors can save both of them it will be a great thing cuz saving two lives is more valuable the saving one life, If doctors recommend abortion to save mother’s life then that kind of abortion is reasonable because it will save mother’s life and can prevent the possible loss of both of them.

Nope, you haven’t addressed ever the full human rights that a woman has including bodily autonomy, and until you do, you have nothing cogent to say whatsoever on the topic of abortion. You must perforce address the womans rights, and how, in you meager mind, they must be subjugated to something that isn’t a human being.

Oh, sally don’t say that, its not a thing but a human fetus if you become pregnant it will be part of your body.

Yes, it can be thing to be removed. Just like a cyst, etc. Until you stop with your fetus fetish, and talk about the woman with full human rights including bodily autonomy, you have nothing cogent to say.

Kalid: You’re an idiot. You aren’t paying a bit of attention to what anyone else is saying.

Do not post in this thread anymore. You are only allowed to comment in the Thunderdome. If you post anywhere else, you will be banned. If you reply to this here, you will be banned. Just go there and only post there, where your stupidity will not plague anyone who doesn’t want to hear it.

Mainly empathy. I want to be free and happy, so I favor a society that maximizes freedom and happiness for all. The details may get a bit tricky at times, but as a general principle I think it’s perfectly straightforward.

Look, what sort of freedom, everyone loves freedom but here we are dealing with something more troubling, what are the boundaries of that freedom (we legalize killing a living human fetus we are free to kill that living fetus but we are not free to have sex with teenage girls) and what sort of Empathy? empathy is subjective in your worldview, isn’t it?

You know what I’m a liberal somehow I know that Liberalism is inherently internally contradicted because of these reasons:

1. Liberalism is enticing boundless human desires.

2. Liberalism had failed to control those desires as they may sometimes become so crazy (The Amazing atheist, incestuous, and so many sexual desires things)

3.Liberalism had failed to satisfy all those enticed desires.

And the outcome is a complete confusion:

1.Why same sex marriage is morally good and legal but incestuous Marriage is illegal?

2.Why killing and an immature human fetus is morally good thing and legal but Raping immature 13 year old teenage girls is illegal?

3.Why killing the immature human fetus is morally good thing because it still didn’t reached the legal age to have the right to live and because its not self aware but killing a disabled comatose human is illegal?

There is a huge internal contradiction here which is still unresolved, its what we call the empty cores of liberalism.

Every ideological system is based on a certain worldview, In general the ideological system is based on almost three pillars as i think:

1. A worldview

2. Goals to be perused

3.The strategy or the mechanism to achieve.

The worldview is how the adherents of that certain ideology understand the world around them, how do they understand the metaphysics of life and things around them.

This worldview is the bedrock that they base every thing from their moral system, their goals their strategies to achieve those goals, how do they understand empathy, how do they understand freedom every single issue in their socio-political life.

Here the worldview is mixture of secularism/atheism, Determinism, Materialism and Darwinism, that is what the mental image of the world around liberals is based on, for e.g: you believe that religion is a delusional thing ( its based on atheism) so we don’t need in our social system (secularism).

The question who we are? (Your answer we are animals no more no less) its based on Darwinism, and there will be a lot of implications which are the result of this kind of worldview (like the so called sociology of the natural law[the amazing atheist] , the sociology of the survival of the fittest [Poor people must suffer because they are lazy so we don’t have to support them] (Which you may deny but its the reality) and other similar things.

As long as humans are talking apes and mere animals without high purpose in life, then their moral system must be fitted with that worldview, we must accept that people are free to satisfy all sorts of sexual and non-sexual desires since we are liberated from the chains of religion and its morality.

Then people set their goals in life with these above worldviews:

1.Prosperity.

2.Freedom.

3.civilization.

4.Happiness.

5.Full Satisfaction. and so on.

The strategy to achieve those goals and many others is, embracing unbounded liberty, laissez-faire, empathy in general its all those things that liberalism is based upon.

Here we see lots of ambiguity since we are animals and we have unbounded liberty its difficult to determine fixed set of moral (system objective moral system), also we can see that liberalism strategy is so flawed so much so it cannot fully satisfy human desires nor control them whether the desire is for wealth or if its a sexual desire or power desires.

Also we are facing a real dilemma what is moral and what is immoral since their is NO fixed source of morality within liberal system.

For e.g: these question are so problematic:

1.Why we criticize the *Amazing atheist* [he demanded that the legal age of consent must be lowered in order to satisfy his pedophile sexual desires, he demanded to have a sex with immature 12-13 year old girls legally, we criticize him and we base our judgment that he is trying to take advantage of little poor and immature girls (not adult) ] on the other hand we let people to take advantage of the immature living fetuses (growing to become full human) and to Murder them in the womb?

1.Why we legalize same sex marriage but illegalize incestuous marriage?

2.Why we say little immature girls cannot make legal sexual consent why we say those very girls when they were fetuses they don’t need consent to be killed so let them die helplessly?

And so many other moral dilemmas and much other things.

I don’t accept that we’re purposeless animals. Seems to me we’ve got plenty of purpose. E.g. today I had planned to visit my mother, so for that purpose I took the bus out to see her.

You misunderstood my point, I’m not talking about purpose in that narrow sense but a common purpose in life, why we are born and living on earth? why we are humans? what is the purpose of our existence? I don’t think you a shred of purpose, that is why you are purposeless.

Your problem is a common theistic one: You think of values as something objective. They’re not. Things have value to somebody. As such, if I decide to value something, then I’ve got values. If I decide on a purpose, then I’ve got one. Case closed.

Life is an objective reality, everything around us is objective, laws of logic are objective, laws of nature are objective so why our morals can’t be objective? why everything else is objective but our morals fluctuate?

I have to say this is a common atheistic dilemma, you think morality is subjective then why do you criticize the *Amazing atheist* you have to let him do what wants to do since your moral system and his moral system are different why would you impose your morality on him?

This is exactly where we are dealing with the greatest contradiction and this subjectivity will lead us to more trouble and conflict and finally we may end up in a total chaos.!

I don’t accept the existence of laws of nature, in any prescriptive sense. The laws of nature are purely descriptive. They describe what happens. They don’t tell us what to do.

I suspect that what you really mean is “why should we refrain from doing what we’d like to do, with no regard for consequences to others?” In that case, I refer you to my first answer: Empathy.

But empathy is also subjective, the *Amazing atheist* can have an empathy and have a sex with a teenage girl you also have the empathy to kill a living fetus in the womb of his mother, and my empathy is why I’m opposing murdering fetuses.

If your answer is leading to a fixed human ideology like one you may think its good what makes your ideology a holly one and other ideologies evil?

****
I’m not sure it does. Morality isn’t a set of rules set in stone. Reality is too complicated for that. Moral systems can only give us guiding principles and then we can evaluate individual cases based on those principles. There’s no substitute for independent thought.

You said values which is the very base of morality is subjective and not objective, and you say morality can give us guiding principle how? its subjective means you can have your moral system and I have my own moral system and the *Amazing Atheist* can have his own moral system, why would you like to impose your subjective moral system on us and other people?

Now that I’ve answered your questions, would you like to address anything I’ve said? For example, how do you distinguish between what is moral and immoral? If, hypothetically, a fraudulent verse had been inserted into the Qur’an, how would you detect it?

You already answered this question I said morality is objective it can be derived from human’s purpose in life and life is objective laws of logic are objective, otherwise if we accept subjectivity then their is no a general set of rules called morality but their is chaos and human desires and subjective ideas inevitably will conflict and we will be de-civilized and we will turn in the laws of jungle were every animal has his subjective desires and decisions.

Kalid: You’re an idiot. You aren’t paying a bit of attention to what anyone else is saying.

Do not post in this thread anymore. You are only allowed to comment in the Thunderdome. If you post anywhere else, you will be banned. If you reply to this here, you will be banned. Just go there and only post there, where your stupidity will not plague anyone who doesn’t want to hear it.

PZ, are you threatening me? this is the free-thoughts blog, we do live in the free world, what is that censorship?

Are we living the communist soviet, DON’T SPEAK, DON’T SAY ANYTHING?

I’m so sorry that you have decided to ban me to express my opinion, you can’t be a liberal?

I’m getting a swarm of these, all sounding nearly exactly alike. And what do you know, an idiot youtube atheist just issued a fatwah. Guys, I’d be more impressed with your claim to be unique individuals if you didn’t simply parrot some youtuber’s talking points.

Hello PZ myers. I just want to email you to ask you a few questions and to plead for sanity. I am fairly sure that I am just wasting my time and you will not respond but here I go anyways. What is the deal with your “free thought blog”? You censor comment and ban people for not agreeing with you, from what I have heard.

Oh, please, get down off the fucking cross already. It’s a really boring trope: I’ve got comments all over the place that start, “I know you will delete this comment because I disagree with you…” and strangely, they don’t get deleted. Look at any article with a lot of comments, and you won’t find it’s all a bunch of people agreeing with me — even regulars here routinely criticize me. What you always find in those long threads is one or more jackasses braying repeatedly and inciting prolonged rebuttals.

“From what I have heard”…right. Sleazy little wanker, you are. Where did you hear it? I bet I can guess.

You seem to start arguments in the atheist community, which largely serve to divide the community and make it harder for us to get in a position to actually do something about the harm that religion causes humanity. You have people on other websites talking bad about other atheists and scientists in your name.

In MY name? That doesn’t even make sense. I’m a guy with a blog and a teaching position, with zero power and authority. I write what I think, and many people agree, and many disagree.
And what atheist community? You act as if there is some monolithic institution with a few rebels causing trouble. Atheism is a chaotic mess, with many communities within it. It seems to annoy some people that I don’t join with the libertarian, anti-feminist herd, but they never seem to consider that it takes two sides to make a rift.

I am trying to be polite in this email but you seem to be starting a cult in your fan base. We all need to work together to make the world a better place. We won’t always agree 100% with everyone even in our little niche groups, if we do then that is a sign of something worse at work. I am not asking you to just go out and say “sorry I was a jerk” but you NEED to stop doing things to divide the community.

Oh, no, I’m dividing the community! I dare to point out that some members of this community are assholes, and you get to call me a jerk and tell me what to do. If you really want to do something to help humanity, then I’m afraid what you need to do is separate yourself from the anti-feminist ranters and join a group that sincerely cares about social justice, rather than using the term as an insult.

I grew up in the 1960s, and I remember a real divide — there were all these young people demanding an end to the draft and opposing war, and then there were all the people with the “America, love it or leave it” bumper stickers. And even when I was 9 years old I could see the deep logical flaw in the bumper sticker people. If you really loved the country, and you saw serious problems (like Nixon, or creationism, or misogyny), wouldn’t the appropriate response be to work to fix them, rather than denying their existence?

Yet here we have atheists who insist on the equivalent of “atheism, love it or leave it,” seeing no flaws at all, and demanding that anyone who disagrees should shut up in the name of holy unity.
Fuck that noise. I do not aim to conform.

I now remember what that thread was all about, believe me i thought that guy was lying when he said PZ CENSORS the comments and the thought of those who disagree with him!

Oh, please, get down off the fucking cross already. It’s a really boring trope: I’ve got comments all over the place that start, “I know you will delete this comment because I disagree with you…” and strangely, they don’t get deleted. Look at any article with a lot of comments, and you won’t find it’s all a bunch of people agreeing with me

What….? Man you are not what you think you are cope up with that reality!

*YES YOU CENSOR THE THOUGHTS, YOU THREATEN PEOPLE WHO DISAGREE WITH YOU*

AND THIS IS NOT A STRAW-MAN WE HAVE SEEN HERE AND WE CAN PROVE EMPIRICALLY!

Do not post in this thread anymore. You are only allowed to comment in the Thunderdome. If you post anywhere else, you will be banned. If you reply to this here, you will be banned. Just go there and only post there, where your stupidity will not plague anyone who doesn’t want to hear it.

THE HYPOTHESIS THAT PZ CENSORS THE THOUGHTS OF THOSE WHO DISAGREE WITH HIM IS FINALLY EMPIRICALLY VERIFIED! (NOW THE ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS OF THET MAIL HAS BEEN ACCEPTED)

Kalid wasn’t censored despite his claims; just prima facie evidence he fails to grasp the concept. He can present his bullshit anywhere else on the internet that tolerates his bullshit. If I was interested (and I’m not, what an ignorant bigoted fool), I could find where he is now preaching. PZ is not required to give him a forum.
A blog is not a public forum, it is subject to rules of the owners. Kalid disobeyed the rules when he obviously wasn’t responding to criticism of his blatherings.
Nothing Kalid said at any point changed my mind on anything. Total and abject failure, but typical of anyone preaching at me.

And all of those shit-tastic comments remain in the wake of kalid/kaled being finally shut the hell up after telling us his ridiculously wrong take on every topic under the sun. For fuck’s sake, the man doesn’t even understand his own religion. And he even had a chance to continue posting here, but he couldn’t tolerate being told what to do and had to throw a toddler tantrum about being told by the blog owner to take it to another thread.

It is a shame because brave creationists trekking in here are hard to come by, especially Muslim creationists. So they usually last longer. But kalid/kaled: you were stupid even by creationist standards. If you had shame, you should be feeling it right now.